Notes

Notes

 

Chapters

Chapters
278 1. made only sporadic efforts BVG 177, 2/25/1882: This is the only effort at concealment that Vincent mentions, and it is merely prospective. Anticipating a visit to The Hague by his brother, he writes: "When you come, I hope we'll have some quiet time together in the studio, and I also hope that you'll write to me in advance, so that I can arrange with the model not to come during the days of your visit" (JLB 206, 2/25/1882). 2. late January 1882BVG 193, 5/14/1882: This is Vincent's story, at least. The question of when Vincent met Sien, with its inevitable implication that he might be the father of the child she bore, has been the unwelcome guest at all serious biographical inquiries into their relationship. Sometimes it is addressed directly; more often, between the lines. The vehemence of the "official" denials of paternity, both direct and indirect (see, e.g., Hulsker, "Van Gogh's Dramatic Years in The Hague," pp. 20-21; and Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, pp. 139-140), probably has more to do with the perceived implications (moral, legal, or both) than with thoughtful examination of the record, which presents, at the very least, some interesting, probably unanswerable questions. First is the issue of opportunity. Vincent was, in fact, in The Hague sometime in late August or September of 1881, nine months before the birth of Sien's child on July 2, 1882. Not surprisingly, he does not report seeing a prostitute at that time, although several days of that trip are largely unaccounted for. In late November, he does visit a prostitute after his rejection at the Strickers, but his account appears to locate her not in The Hague, where some accounts put her, but in Amsterdam, as Hulsker vigorously argues (ibid.).

What is striking about Vincent's account of the "Amsterdam" whore -- and the reason why suspicions about an earlier connection to Sien Hoornik persist -- is the extraordinary similarity between the two. Describing the Amsterdam prostitute, Vincent writes: "And she was no longer young, perhaps the same age as K.V., and she had a child, yes, life had given her a drubbing and her youth was gone. Gone? -- there is no such thing as an old woman." (JLB 193, 12/23/1881.) Almost everything about this woman -- the age, the child, perhaps even the pockmarks ("life had given her a drubbing") -- even the invocation of Michelet, anticipates Vincent's later descriptions of Sien Hoornik (ibid.). If, in fact, he impregnated her in September, he likely would have sought her out again after the collapse of his romantic suit of Kee Vos (see Zemel, p. 367, n. 22). Finally, there is good reason not to trust Vincent's implied insistence that the timing of their first meeting foreclosed the possibility of his paternity. At the time he tells Theo that he met Sien at the end of January, he is desperately arguing to marry Sien in order to rescue her from the depredations of an uncaring society (specifically, the man who left her pregnant). If, in fact, he was responsible for her pregnancy, his case would have been considerably weakened. (As Zemel points out, other aspects of Vincent's story about Sien's "youthful liaison" gone wrong are contradicted by the known facts [ibid., p. 366].) It must be probative of something that Vincent's denials of paternity were not nearly as convincing to his family at the time as they have been to subsequent commentators like Hulsker. Not only Dorus, but even the sympathetic Theo, continued to suspect that Vincent was, indeed, the father of Sien's child.

Context:
JLB 228, 5/16/1882: "Then, after M. let me down and I was ill for a few days, at the end of January I met Christien."

3. "Do you perhaps" BVG 189, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882.

Context:
BVG 189, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882: " Do you perhaps know something that I do not, or can you give me some information about this matter?"
JLB 219, 4/21/1882: " Do you perhaps know something about this that I don't? Could you perhaps enlighten me on this subject?"

4. an inviolable "barrier" BVG 197, 5/12/1882-5/13/1882: After revealing the relationship with Sien, Vincent pushes this notion of separation of artistic and personal matters even harder, the object being to convince Theo that, no matter what he thinks of Sien, he should not cut off money for Vincent's artistic enterprise.

Context:
BVG 197, 5/12/1882 or 5/13/1882: "That is something quite apart -- there is a barrier between artistic and personal matters -- but it is right to settle how we look at those things beforehand."
JLB 226, 5/13/1882: "The other is something entirely separate, there's a boundary between the artistic and the intimate, but it's good to agree frankly on how we see things."

5. Theo surely suspected Even Hulsker, who is loathe to acknowledge any subtextual currents running contrary to Vincent's text, concedes: "It is questionable whether all this came as a surprise to Théo. H. G. Tersteeg and Anthon Mauve could easily have reported to him that the model frequented Vincent's house, and even Vincent's own communications about his 'regular models' would have given Théo every reason for some suspicion." (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 122.) Hulsker goes on to refer to "the smoke screen Vincent had laid around his life in The Hague." This is exactly the accusation of prevarication and misdirection that Hulsker steadfastly rebuts everywhere else in the correspondence. 6. long traded in stories In these exchanges, Vincent typically played the knowledgeable brothel-meister (as he and Theo were forever embroiled in tempestuous affairs with "inappropriate" women). Vincent assumed the same worldly role with Van Rappard (as he would later with Émile Bernard). The best example comes in letter from November 1881, which is almost entirely devoted to an exploration of the typology of mistresses. This is a typical man-of-the-world comment from that letter: "Rappard, there are people, and perhaps you and I are such, who don't understand, until they really love, that before that time, consciously or unconsciously, they've had mistresses of one or other of these dispositions, or perhaps aren't unacquainted with both varieties" (JLB 184, 11/12/1881).

In an effort to display his commanding knowledge on this subject, Vincent lectures Van Rappard at length on "two kinds of mistresses": "Now in my opinion there are two kinds of mistress. One is the kind with whom one can give and take love, one or both of you being aware, meanwhile, that it isn't forever, neither does one surrender to it whole-heartedly and unreservedly. Such mistresses get on one's nerves, they coax, they spoil one, then -- then -- ... they burn up a good many men. The second kind of mistress is of an entirely different disposition. The strait-laced -- Pharisees -- Jesuits!!! They are the kind of women of marble -- sphinx -- cold vipers -- who would like to bind men to themselves, entirely, for ever and ever, without her ever surrendering whole-heartedly, entirely, unreservedly. They suck your blood. Such mistresses freeze men, and petrify them." (ibid.; emphasis in original.) What is striking about this heated disquisition is its removal from the reality of prostitutes and brothels. Even discounting for the elaborate conceit that Vincent is attempting to build, his insights into sex and women seem little more than warmed-over schoolboy bluster.

Vincent had similar exchanges with Theo. This is suggested by this comment in December 1881 after Vincent tells Theo about his encounter with the prostitute in Amsterdam (see Chapter 15): "That woman didn't cheat me -- oh, anyone who thinks all those sisters are swindlers is so wrong and understands so little. That woman was good to me, very good, very decent, very sweet. In what way? That I won't repeat even to my brother Theo, because I strongly suspect my brother Theo of having experienced something of this himself now and then. The better for him." (JLB 193, 12/23/1881.)

7. religious years, Vincent obsessed BVG 164, 12/21/1881: Vincent later admitted that during his religious period he envied the men who picked up prostitutes.

Context:
JLB 193, 12/23/1881: "Whenever I walked down the street -- often all alone and at loose ends, half sick and destitute, with no money in my pocket -- I looked at them and envied the people who could go off with her."

8. "fallen women" BVG R21, 2/7/1883.

Context:
BVG R21, 2/7/1883: "As to her past life, I believe that you condemn 'fallen women' no more than I do."
JLB 309, 2/8/1883: "As to her life, I believe that, like me, you don't condemn fallen women."

9. "carnal man" BVG 72, 8/2/1876: During his pilgrimage in England, Vincent struggled, as here, to view carnality as a burden of the weak and the unenlightened. He tried to escape carnality in his own life, and, in his unending campaign for fraternal solidarity, encouraged Theo to escape carnality in his life, too, promising that renunciation would lead to an even better, fuller, richer life. Vincent doth protest too much. The ardency of his rejection suggests the strength of the carnal impulses he was fighting. Theo, too, was fighting those impulses, but for reasons of family duty, not religion.

Context:
BVG 72, 8/2/1876: "The heart of a carnal man 'sometimes succumbs to a violent desire' is the view of those who preach and work for Him, who has given them some sort of a baptism of the Holy Spirit and of fire."
JLB 87, 8/2/1876: "The heart of a man of flesh and blood 'sometimes faints from earnest longing' upon seeing those who devote themselves to and work for Him who baptized them, as it were, with the Holy Ghost, and with fire, and they -- look, their eyes sometimes grow moist with tears of wistfulness as they think back on their young years and on 'the good things with which He satisfied them.'"

10. "violent desire" BVG 72, 8/2/1876.

Context:
BVG 72, 8/2/1876: "The heart of a carnal man 'sometimes succumbs to a violent desire' is the view of those who preach and work for Him, who has given them some sort of a baptism of the Holy Spirit and of fire."
JLB 87, 8/2/1876: "The heart of a man of flesh and blood 'sometimes faints from earnest longing' upon seeing those who devote themselves to and work for Him who baptized them, as it were, with the Holy Ghost, and with fire, and they -- look, their eyes sometimes grow moist with tears of wistfulness as they think back on their young years and on 'the good things with which He satisfied them.'"

11. prostitute in Amsterdam BVG 164, 12/21/1881: The similarity between the prostitute described in this passage and Sien Hoornik has not been lost on subsequent commentators.

Context:
JLB 193, 12/23/1881: "It was a sober, simple little room she lived in, with a subdued, grey tone because of the plain wallpaper and yet as warm as a painting by Chardin, a wooden floor with a mat and an old piece of dark-red carpet, an ordinary kitchen stove, a chest of drawers, a large, perfectly simple bed, in short, a real working woman's interior. She had to do the washing the next day. Just right, very good, I would have found her just as charming in a purple jacket and a black skirt as now in a brown or red-grey frock. And she was no longer young, perhaps the same age as K[ee] V[os], and she had a child, yes, life had given her a drubbing and her youth was gone. Gone? -- there is no such thing as an old woman. Ah, and she was strong and healthy -- and yet not rough, not common."

12. he wrote Theo BVG 164, 12/21/1881: Vincent's defense centers on the Victorian notion of "hygiene." The truly inexcusable sin, and the greatest health risk, was not prostitution, it was masturbation. Thus, prostitutes were seen as an unfortunate but necessary release -- a lesser evil to avoid the greater evil. Vincent's letters are filled with this contemporary wisdom. According to Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, there was an entire movement, primarily in England and France, that championed this view. With an approach that owed more to positivism than traditional morality, the "hygienists" believed that prostitution should be seen in the broader context of public health, which meant not only regulating the health of sex providers (prostitutes) but recognizing that "the healthy functioning of the young unmarried man -- also an organism after all -- for whom satisfying his sexual desires was a natural necessity; repression of those needs was considered detrimental to his health and was, therefore, not a viable option, medically speaking" (Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, pp. 48-49).

Context:
JLB 193, 12/23/1881: "In the circumstances, however, I struggled much within myself, and in that struggle some things concerning physical powers and health gained the upper hand, things which I believe and know more or less through bitter experience. One doesn't live too long without a woman without going unpunished. And I don't think that what some call God and others the supreme being and others nature is unreasonable and merciless, and, in a word, I came to the conclusion, I must see whether I can't find a woman."

13. his special affection BVG 164, 12/21/1881. "I don't damn them, I don't condemn them, I don't despise them" (JLB 193, 12/23/1881). Referring to the prostitute he saw in Amsterdam, he writes, "That woman didn't cheat me -- oh, anyone who thinks all those sisters are swindlers is so wrong and understands so little. That woman was good to me, very good, very decent, very sweet. In what way? That I won't repeat even to my brother Theo, because I strongly suspect my brother Theo of having experienced something of this himself now and then. The better for him." (ibid.)

Context:
BVG 164, 12/21/1881: "It was not the first time that I was unable to resist that feeling of affection, that special affection and love for those women who are so damned and condemned and despised by clergymen from the lofty heights of their pulpits."
JLB 193, 12/23/1881: "It's not the first time I couldn't resist that feeling of affection, particularly love and affection for those women whom the clergymen damn so and superciliously despise and condemn from the pulpit."

14. One must not BVG 173, 1/26/1882.

Context:
JLB 203, 1/26/1882: "… you mustn't be embarrassed about going to a girl now and then, if you know one you can trust and you can feel something for, of which there are many in fact. Because for someone whose life is all hard work and exertion it's necessary, absolutely necessary, to stay normal and to keep one's wits about one."

279 15. "I have had" BVG 171, 1/21/1882. In the original, Vincent repeats the word "model": "Ik heb geregeld iedere dag model gehad, van 's morgens tot s' avonds en het model is goed" -- but "het" is a feminine article. Because the gender does not translate into English without it, we have used the pronoun instead of the repeated "model."

Context:
JLB 201, 1/21/1882: "I've had a model every day on a regular basis, from morning to evening, and the model is good."

16. begun to draw BVG 182, 3/14/1882-3/18/1882: For obvious reasons, Vincent is somewhat coy about this announcement. Even though he implies at first that he will wait until summer to begin actually drawing from the nude, he reports his first nude drawing, The Great Lady (also known as Nude Woman [F 185 JH 128]), in early April, only a few weeks after the initial announcement, perhaps because of a spell of "wonderful weather" (JLB 215, 4/6/1882). By mid-April, he is reporting numerous drawings from the nude, including "a kneeling female figure, and yesterday the pose of a woman knitting, but also nude" (JLB 217, 4/14/1882). We also suspect that Vincent's insistence on his interest in both female and male subjects ("a nude model for a digger or seamstress") is -- like the speculative construction -- pure mis-direction (JLB 212, 3/16/1882-3/20/1882). As is his prudish discussion of the reticence of models to pose nude -- "if I could avoid it I'd like to avoid having a nude model in the studio, so as not to make other models timid" -- and the mention of the "very old man" who was apparently willing to strip naked for him (ibid.). In fact, Vincent never showed the slightest interest in drawing from nude male models, notwithstanding his high-minded talk of "learn[ing] to see and sense the shape through the clothing and get a clear idea of the movement" (ibid.).

Context:
JLB 212, 3/16/1882-3/20/1882: "I wanted, for instance, so very, very much to have, for example, a nude model for a digger or seamstress. From the front, from the back, from the side. To learn to see and sense the shape through the clothing and get a clear idea of the movement."

17. would expose his deception BVG 189, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882. Vincent's ever-present concern that Mauve will spill the beans about Sien is clearly evident in this disingenuous passage: "it hurts me about Mauve, because even though I wouldn't want to have any more of such 'guidance,' I would in fact like to shake his hand again, and wish he wanted to do the same. Do you perhaps know something about this that I don't? Could you perhaps enlighten me on this subject? ... Forgive me for bothering you with this, but you see, I'm so much in the dark." (JLB 219, 4/21/1882.) 18. In eight letters Undoubtedly, this campaign helps explains the outpouring of eight letters in April [JLB 214, 4/2/1882 through JLB 221, 4/26/1882] and one in early May (JLB 222, 5/1/1882). However, it is not clear until around the middle of the month that Vincent has determined to tell Theo about Sien, and it is not until the end of this series of letters that the preparatory arguments take center stage in the correspondence. 19. himself as a martyr BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882.

Context:
JLB 220, 4/23/1882: "I'll continue to live in a different sphere from most other painters, because my view of things, the subjects I want to depict, inevitably demand it."

20. The one opposed BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882. Speaking of his disputes with Mauve and Tersteeg, Vincent writes: "I fear that the better I draw the more trouble and opposition I'll encounter" (JLB 220, 4/23/1882).

Context:
JLB 220, 4/23/1882: "Because -- and you know this -- I do love Mauve, and it's so awful that nothing much will come of all that happiness he held out to me. For I fear that the better I draw the more trouble and opposition I'll encounter."

21. resented his peculiarities BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882.

Context:
JLB 220, 4/23/1882: "I fear that the better I draw the more trouble and opposition I'll encounter. Because I'll have to suffer greatly for various idiosyncrasies that I cannot change. First of all, my appearance and manner of speaking and clothing." (Emphasis in original.)

22. "painter of the people" Van der Mast and Dumas, eds., p. 162. 23. his art demanded BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882.

Context:
JLB 220, 4/23/1882: "Do I lower myself by living with the people I draw, do I lower myself by frequenting the houses of workers and poor people or by receiving them in my studio? It seems to me that my profession involves that."

24. he lower himself BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882.

Context:
JLB 220, 4/23/1882: "Do I lower myself by living with the people I draw ..."

25. "laborers and" BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882.

Context:
BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882: "Do I lower myself by living with the people I draw? Do I lower myself when I go into the houses of labourers and poor people and when I receive them in my studio?"
JLB 220, 4/23/1882: "Do I lower myself by living with the people I draw, do I lower myself by frequenting the houses of workers and poor people or by receiving them in my studio?"

26. "Where do the draftsmen" BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882.

Context:
BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882: "I put the question, where do the draughtsmen who work for the Graphic, Punch, etc., get their models?"
JLB 220, 4/23/1882: "I ask this: where do the draughtsmen for The Graphic, Punch &c. get their models?"

27. "different sphere" BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882.

Context:
BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882: "First, my appearance and my way of speaking and my clothes; and then, even later on when I earn more, I shall always move in a different sphere from most painters because my conception of things, the subjects I want to make, inexorably demand it."
JLB 220, 4/23/1882: "First of all, my appearance and manner of speaking and clothing, and also because later, when I'm earning more, I'll continue to live in a different sphere from most other painters, because my view of things, the subjects I want to depict, inevitably demand it."

28. "I do not want" BVG 195, 5/1/1882.

Context:
BVG 195, 5/1/1882: "But I say to myself that it's better to do it in a year than to do it now, because I do not want the beauty to come from the material, but from within myself."
JLB 222, 5/1/1882: "But I imagine it would be better for me to do that in a year and not now, because I want the fine appearance to come from me and not from my material."

29. "woman of the people" BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882.

Context:
BVG 204, 6/1/1882: "I am longing to know what impression Sien will make on you. There is nothing special about her, she is just an ordinary woman of the people who has something of the sublime for me."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "I'm eager to know what sort of impression Sien will make on you. There's nothing special about her; she's just an ordinary woman of the people who for me has something sublime."

30. the storm Vincent invokes this part of the Kee Vos episode only inferentially, not explicitly. 31. "Last year" BVG 195, 5/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 222, 5/1/1882: "Last year I wrote you a great many letters telling you what I thought about love. I'm not doing so now, because I'm busy putting those same things into practice. ... Would I have done better to go on thinking of her and to overlook what came my way?"

280 32. scarcely veiled hypothetical BVG 195, 5/1/1882. Vincent transparently constructs this parable to maximize Theo's sympathy for his relationship with Sien, which Vincent will reveal within days. "Suppose I were to start today on a drawing of a digger, for example -- but the man says, I have to leave and won't or can't pose again -- I don't have the right to blame him for leaving me there with a barely sketched drawing, the more so because I started to draw him without asking permission. Must I then give up drawing a digger? I think not, especially not if tomorrow I encounter one who says, I want to come not only today but also tomorrow and the day after, and I understand what you need, go ahead, I'm patient and have the good will to do it. To be sure, I didn't stick exactly to my first impression, but would I have done better to reason: no, I definitely need that first digger, even if he says, I can't and won't? And once I've started on No. 2, then I may certainly not work without reference to the nature standing before me, thinking the while of No. 1. That's how things stand." (JLB 222, 5/1/1882.) The use of the male "digger" is, as before, a misdirection that allows Vincent to talk specifically about models without divulging the details of the real case, although it is hard to believe that Theo did not see the full implications by this late date.

Context:
JLB 222, 5/1/1882: "I cannot decide whether I'm acting consistently or inconsistently."

33. "I will come" BVG 195, 5/1/1882: Emphasis added to underscore how submissiveness plays a central role in Vincent's fantasy of the perfect woman and mate. Vincent does not put these lines in quotations, but his intent is clear: "if tomorrow I encounter one [a model] who says, I want to come not only today but also tomorrow and the day after, and I understand what you need, go ahead, I'm patient and have the good will to do it" (JLB 222, 5/1/1882).

Context:
JLB 222, 5/1/1882: "I want to come not only today but also tomorrow and the day after, and I understand what you need, go ahead ..."

34. problems will be solved BVG 195, 5/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 222, 5/1/1882: "And provided I myself am capable of doing something, I'll make twice as much progress, and perhaps it will prove easier than expected."

35. "Father and Mother" BVG 195, 5/1/1882: This, of course, represents an extraordinary reach of argumentation or delusion or both. Vincent is playing out the scenario of love and marriage without providing the most relevant details about Sien. There is not the remotest chance that his father and mother will approve of his relationship with Sien or change their feelings about Vincent if he chooses to settle down with this woman. We changed the wording of Vincent's letter: "half a year from now, if the matter about which I wrote to you has been undertaken and Pa and Ma come to visit me, it would result in a change of feeling on both sides" (JLB 222, 5/1/1882).

Context:
JLB 222, 5/1/1882: "Pa and Ma come to visit me, it would result in a change of feeling on both sides."

36. In mid-April BVG 186, 4/10/1882. Vincent opens this letter: "Today I sent you 1 drawing ..." (JLB 216, 4/10/1882). 37. her pose was based "Sorrow" is clearly based on the pose (académie) illustrated in Plate III, 24 (Homme assis sur le sol, tête sure les genoux [Man seated upon the ground, his head on his knees]). Vincent has rotated his model (Sien) from the Bargue example, raised her slightly on a low stool and altered the position of the crossed arms. Vincent acknowledged as much in an earlier letter in which he wrote: "I don't have many studies of the nude yet, but there are some that bear a very close resemblance to the Bargues, are they therefore less original? Perhaps it's because I learned to look at nature through the Bargues." (JLB 215, 4/6/1882.) Nevertheless, the search for other sources for this pose has led far and wide (see Boime, p. 94, and Chetham, p. 26); but to understand its resonance for Vincent, one has to look no further than the book that proved so important to him in the Borinage during the period of his greatest despair: Hugo's The Last Day of a Condemned Man (1829): "I sat there with my burning head hanging heavy in my hands, with my elbows on my knees and my feet on the crossbars of my chair; for dejection makes me bend and curl up on myself as though my limbs had no bones, and my flesh, no muscles" (Hugo, p. 58). 281 38. graphic magazine illustrations BVG 186, 4/10/1882.

Context:
JLB 216, 4/10/1882: "Naturally I don't always draw like this. But I'm extremely fond of those English drawings that are done in this style, so it's no wonder that I tried to do the same for once."

39. but also Michelet Zemel includes an interesting discussion of Michelet as sexual guru to nineteenth-century bourgeois males like Vincent and Theo. "Indeed, the contents pages of [Michelet's] L'Amour, with sections listed on the 'Creation of the Beloved,' chapters on 'The Revelation of Woman,' 'Should You Choose a Frenchwoman?' (the answer, of course, was yes), 'Am I Fit to Create a Woman?' (also yes), 'Love in a Cottage' (better there than in the streets), and detailed instructions on what that cozy nest should be -- dramatizes the appeal of both Michelet's rhetoric and his ideas to a middle-class male audience" (Zemel, pp. 356-359). One of Michelet's seminal ideas, which Vincent was undoubtedly invoking in defense of his relationship with Sien, was that the best way to redeem a fallen woman was through marriage and a normal home life. As Zemel writes, "If repentance was the recipe for rescue, it could best be realized, not surprisingly, according to Michelet, within the family -- that refuge from the fallen woman's solitary misery. ... Michelet naturalized the issue and invested it with moral urgency. 'Woman dies,' he wrote, 'if she has no hearth and no protection.' 'A household she ought to have, she ought to be married.' And in a chapter titled 'No Life for Woman without Man': 'Nature has bound up life within a triple and absolute tie: man, woman and child. Separately they are sure to perish, and are only saved together.'" (ibid.) 40. love excused all According to Zemel, "Michelet acknowledged in La Femme the sexual dangers that threatened the single working girl or 'operative' unable to live on a factory or piece-work wage.' But what distinguished him among his contemporaries was the conviction that fallen women, if properly repentant, might be redeemed. It was possible, Michelet believed, to reverse the consequences of a moral and social fall. 'We too easily imagine that a woman is irremediably ruined,' he wrote, 'when once she has seriously resolved to return to virtue, when she once has fairly begun to live by struggles, sacrifices, and reflection, she is already regenerate ... if once she loves, all is well. The best man in the world may find happiness in her and be honored by her still.'" (Zemel, p. 358.) 41. and Millet BVG 186, 4/10/1882. Apparently, Theo had brought a copy of Millet's woodcut (La Bergère) to Etten on one of his two visits in the summer of 1881: "Last summer, when you had that large woodcut by Millet, 'the shepherdess,' I thought: how much one can do with one single line! Naturally I don't presume to say as much as Millet with a single outline." (JLB 216, 4/10/1882.) 42. lilies for innocence Werness, pp. 44-45: Werness explores the Christian overlay on these traditional symbols -- "The lily of the valley is the specific attribute of the Madonna of the Immaculate Conception and further symbolizes the Advent of Christ" -- but even Werness concedes that Vincent does not seem to have a religious agenda. 43. snowdrops Werness, pp. 44-45. 44. for purity, ivy Werness, pp. 44-45. 45. "the void in the heart" BVG 186, 4/10/1882. The quote, written in French, is taken from Michelet's L'oiseau (see JLB 216, 4/10/1882, n. 6).

Context:
BVG 186, 4/10/1882: " Mais reste le vide du coeur, Que rien ne remplira. "
JLB 216, 4/10/1882: "But the heart's emptiness remains, that nothing will make full again."

46. single English word On the version of "Sorrow" that he sent Theo, Vincent added another Michelet quote directly on the image: "Comment se fair-il qu'il y ait sur la terre une femme seule, délaissée!" (How can there be anywhere on earth a woman alone, forsaken!) Werness gives the source of this quotation as La femme (1860). His expanded quotation helpfully elaborates the sentiment Vincent is trying to convey to Theo in "Sorrow": "The worst destiny for woman is to live alone. Alone! The very word is sad to utter. And how can there be on earth a Lone Woman? What! Are there no more men? Are we in the last days of the world? Does the consummation of all things, the approach of the final judgment, render us so selfish that we shut ourselves up in fear of the future? ... In a place where [the lone woman] thinks herself less observed, and lets herself out, what sadness, what visible dejection! I met some of these last winter, still young, but in the decay of their bloom, grown a little thin and pale -- with ennui and anxiety -- with bad and innutritious food perhaps. To make them again beautiful and charming, a very little would have sufficed: hope, and three months of happiness!" (Werness, p. 45.) 47. caption for all his pleas BVG 186, 4/10/1882: Vincent characterizes this aspect of the image as an intimate confession to Theo.

Context:
JLB 216, 4/10/1882: "Naturally I don't always draw like this. But I'm extremely fond of those English drawings that are done in this style, so it's no wonder that I tried to do the same for once, and because it was for you, who understands these things, I didn't hesitate to be somewhat melancholy."

48. "the best figure" BVG 186, 4/10/1882.

Context:
BVG 186, 4/10/1882: "In my opinion the enclosed is the best figure I have drawn yet, therefore I thought I should send it to you."
JLB 216, 4/10/1882: "The enclosed is, I think, the best figure I've drawn, that's why I thought I'd send it to you."

49. skeletal black tree Study of a Tree, F 933r JH 142, late April, 1882, black and white chalk, black ink, pencil, watercolor, 19.7 x 27.2 in., 50 x 69 cm., Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum. 50. "I tried to put" BVG 195, 5/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 222, 5/1/1882: "I've tried to imbue the landscape with the same sentiment as the figure. Frantically and fervently rooting itself, as it were, in the earth, and yet being half torn up by the storm. I wanted to express something of life's struggle, both in that white, slender female figure and in those gnarled black roots with their knots."

51. "I am suspected" BVG 192, 5/3/1882-5/12/1882.

Context:
JLB 224, 5/7/1882: "People suspect me of something ... it's in the air ... I must be hiding something ... Vincent is keeping something back that may not be divulged."

52. "Well, gentlemen" BVG 192, 5/3/1882-5/12/1882. We have substituted "ask" where other translations use "tell" (Bonger and JLB) or "say" (Harrison) ("Well, gentlemen, I'll tell you ..."). In fact, this introductory exclamation is followed directly by a question: "what is more cultured, more sensitive, more manly ...?"

Context:
JLB 224, 5/7/1882: "Well, gentlemen, I'll tell you -- you who set great store by manners and culture, and rightly so, provided it's the real thing -- what is more cultured, more sensitive, more manly: to forsake a woman or to take on a forsaken one? This winter I met a pregnant woman, abandoned by the man whose child she was carrying. A pregnant woman who roamed the streets in winter -- who had to earn her bread, you can imagine how. I took that woman as a model and worked with her the whole winter."

53. Pieter, a porter "Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.: The occupation of Pieter Hoornik (born February 11, 1823; died June 7, 1875) is listed in official records as "porter, letter carrier." 282 54. Geest in the sixteen years "Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.: Pieter's mother, Clasina, bore him in 1823 and married in 1839. In the meantime, she had at least one other illegitimate child, Pieter's brother Johannes Cornelis Hoornik (born February 1, 1829, The Hague). This child, too, took her maiden name. 55. marriage to a blacksmith "Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.: Clasina Hoornik, Sien's grandmother, married Johannes Anthony Tampson, a blacksmith, on March 6, 1839. 56. fathered eleven children "Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.: (1) Clasina Maria (Sien): born February 22, 1850; died November 12, 1904, Rotterdam. (2) Antonius Petrus: born April 3, 1852, The Hague; died May 4, 1852, The Hague. (3) Pieter Antonie (also Anthonie): born May 7, 1853, The Hague; died March 2, 1934, Rijswijk. (4) Carolus Ernestus Jacobus: born March 29, 1856 (birth certificate: March 31, 1856), The Hague; died September 27, 1904, The Hague. (5) Maria Wilhelmina: born November 26, 1858 (birth certificate: November 27, 1858): died June 16, 1863. (6) Hendrik Petrus: born May 24, 1861, The Hague; died January 18, 1862, The Hague. (7) Hendrik Petrus: born March 12, 1863, The Hague; died July 12, 1938, Noordwijkerhout. (8) Marinus Wilhelmus: born July 6, 1865, The Hague; died September 7, 1937, The Hague. (9) Antonius Petrus: born January 19, 1867, The Hague; died March 21, 1898, The Hague. (10) Marcelis Wilhelm: born July 9, 1869, The Hague; died April 11, 1904, The Hague. (11) Maria Wilhelmina: born Oct. 11, 1872, The Hague; died Jan. 9, 1931, The Hague.

It is interesting to note that the death of the first Hendrik Petrus in 1862, at less than one year of age, was followed a year later by the birth of another Hendrik Petrus -- almost exactly the same circumstances as led to Vincent's naming. Perhaps because of the very early death of Antonius Petrus, Zemel calls Sien "the eldest of ten children" (Zemel, p. 18).

57. Maria Wilhelmina Pellers "Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.: Daughter of Antonius Christiaan Pellers and Petronella Kersten, Sien's mother Maria Wilhelmina Pellers* was born in The Hague on August 26, 1829 and died there on October 19, 1910. (*Maria's maiden name is written in various ways in official documents: "Pellers," "Peller," and "Pel.") 58. killed him in 1875 "Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.: Pieter Hoornik died on June 7, 1875. 59. sent to an orphanage The three youngest Hoornik boys, Marinus Wilhelmus (almost ten when his father died), Antonius Petrus (eight at the time), and Marcelis Wilhelm (almost six at the time), went to the orphanage. We can find no evidence to support Zemel's claim that Sien also "lived" in the orphanage "for a time" (Zemel, p. 353). 60. her first illegitimate child "Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.: Maria Clasina Hoornik was born July 3, 1874, and died on July 11, 1874. 61. died a week later "Hoornik Geneaology," n.p. 62. thatching roofs "Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.: Sien's oldest surviving brother Pieter Antonie Hoornik is listed with this occupation. He also is listed as a "furniture maker." He is the only one of the children who, apparently, went on to establish a stable life. Referred to as "very industrious," he eventually bought the house where his mother lived and acted as foster father to Sien's son Willem, who was born in 1882 when she and Vincent lived together. 63. cleaning stores "Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.: Sien's brother Carolus Ernestus Jacobus Hoornik is listed with this occupation. 64. repairing furniture "Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.: Sien's brother Hendrik Petrus Hoornik is listed as a "chair maker" or "furniture maker" in official records. Two of the younger brothers (Marinus Wilhelmus and Antonius Petrus), when they emerged from the orphanage, became "servants." The third (Marcelis Wilhelm) worked as a carpenter. 65. fathering the next generation "Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.: Sien's brother Carolus Ernestus married on April 26, 1882. His son was born on September 26, 1882. The son died less than a year later. Carolus was divorced in 1884 and almost immediately another child appeared (claimed to be by the first wife but reared as the child of the second). Another brother, Marinus Wilhelmus, fathered a girl named Geertruida Elisabeth on July 7, 1881, but she was not made legitimate until the marriage of her parents nine years later (July 23, 1890). Sien's young sister, Maria Wilhelmina, bore a daughter in August 1908 five months after marrying Pieter Nicolaas Zielof. In perhaps the strangest working out of this proclivity, Maria's daughter, Maria Wilhelmina (1877-1940), married, at age twenty-two, a man thirty-six years her senior (Isidor Henri Nort). The marriage had no known issue. 66. Capitalism Blom and Lamberts, eds., p. 405: "During the years of depression, the new economics only worsened the plight of the lowest classes of the populace. The wretched conditions existent among the country's many poor also became much more obvious with the rise of large factories and fast-growing cities; these developments corroded the traditional social structure and sharpened differences between the working class and the bourgeoisie." 67. often leading to blindness De Maré, p. 112: "A country girl employed in stifling conditions to produce a rush order for general mourning in nine days without proper rest might go blind as a result. Loss of sight and that plague of Victorian England, tuberculosis, were the occupational hazards of the seamstress." De Maré points out that women who did sewing work at home were called "slop workers," and "were at the lowest level of the trade." So extreme and pitiful was their plight that they became the subject of a famous (and early) song of social protest: Thomas Hood's "Song of the Shirt" (published in the 1843 Christmas issue of Punch):

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A Woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread.
Stitch! Stitch! Stitch!
In poverty, hunger and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,
Would that its tone could reach the Rich,
She sang this "Song of the Shirt."

Vincent apparently knew this song.

68. considered merely supplementary Zemel, "Sorrowing Women, Rescuing Men: Van Gogh's Images of Women and Family," p. 366. 69. work as seamstresses Zemel, "Sorrowing Women, Rescuing Men: Van Gogh's Images of Women and Family," p. 353: The Dutch word is naaister. Zemel calls it "a very general category; poor women, barely skilled, were commonly designated this way." "[Sien] is listed in the 1874 Hague City Archives as a seamstress." This was the year that her first illegitimate child was born (and died). Zemel asks a series of questions about Sien's claimed status as a seamstress -- "did she sew and mend for people in the Geest? did she work for wealthy families as a dressmaker? was she employed by a shop? did she work at home for clothing fabricators?" But we think Zemels's original thought is the likeliest conclusion: that the claim was just a cover for the truth, that Sien never really earned any significant portion of her income as a seamstress. 70. or charwomen BVG 193, 5/14/1882: Vincent says of Sien's mother: "She doesn't want to be dependent, she makes her living as a charwoman" (JLB 228, 5/16/1882). 71. euphemism for streetwalker De Maré, p. 112: "It is not surprising, therefore, that many desperate dressmakers and milliners took to prostitution; the word milliner, indeed, came almost to serve as a synonym for streetwalker, but often these girls held on to respectability with one arm, augmenting their income by part-time love-making only, when they were known as 'dollymops.'" 72. second illegitimate child "Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.: Maria Wilhelmina was born May 7, 1877, and died June 21, 1940. This is one of the two young Hoornik girls that Vincent knew; the other was Sien's sister, also Maria Wilhelmina, who was nine when Vincent met her, probably in January 1882. 73. "zonder beroep" Zemel, "Sorrowing Women, Rescuing Men: Van Gogh's Images of Women and Family," p. 366. 74. lived a nomadic existence Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, p. 89. 75. every few months Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, p. 67. 76. city's official brothels Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, p. 99: Official brothels were known, not fondly, for their "sanitary appearance and spermicidal paperwork." 77. Napoleon's "French System" Corbin, p. 111. 78. a "public woman" Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, p. 255. 283 79. notorious red card Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, p. 32: "All brothel keepers and prostitutes had to be registered by the police. On that occasion, prostitutes received a red card with their personal information on which from that point onwards their mandatory biweekly visit to the police doctor was checked off." 80. regular health exams Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, p. 32: If a woman "failed" the health exam, her red card would be replaced by a white one, and no brothel-keeper would hire her. "If a venereal disease was discovered during the medical, then the infected woman was placed under legal restraint: she received medication or was hospitalized, and she had to exchange her red card for a white one. That automatically meant she was not allowed to work until she was officially declared cured. Failure to observe these regulations could lead to a couple of weeks' imprisonment for the prostitute, or to closure of the establishment for the brothel keeper." 81. off the official books Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, p. 255: A census taken in 1870 showed only three hundred and fifty-five prostitutes registered in The Hague; less than a third of them in brothels: specifically, one hundred and five prostitutes working in brothels and two hundred and fifty "free" prostitutes. If Bossenbroek and Kompagnie are correct, the number probably stayed roughly the same for the next decade or, if it moved, declined, as part of the general decline in the patronage of registered brothels and prostitutes. The authors provide the following caution: "The above figures pertain to registered public women; clandestine prostitution is not included in the data." 82. beer halls, bars Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, p. 97: The authors refer to these establishments as places "where the dividing line between catering industry and whoring was rather blurred." 83. Outside the official system Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, p. 90: In the 1860s and 1870s (that is, when regulatory systems were most widely adopted in the Netherlands), there was a marked decrease in regular brothel prostitution, accompanied by an increase in clandestine forms of prostitution. Bossenbroek and Kompagnie spend significant energy trying to explain the decline in brothel prostitution, pointing out that the simultaneous fall in illegitimate birth rates suggests that the answer is not so simple as the balloon paradigm, where unregistered prostitution expanded commensurately with the decline in brothel prostitution. They concede, "There might have been a tightening up of standards of decency," or "a certain upsurge of prudishness," but acknowledge that the decline may also be due "rather to more effective birth control methods." They also offer: "the changes first developed on the supply side: i.e. less prostitution as a survival strategy, a more differentiated and stimulating supply (e.g. the foreign women, the addictive hum of café and cabaret, the deluding luster of conquest) that created a corresponding demand among the regular clientele. In both cases, the developments would have been furthered by the overall wealth increase: less prostitution out of poverty, more money available for whoring 'with frills.'" 84. bourgeois consumerism Corbin, p. 20: Corbin elegantly links the changing nature of prostitution to the same "trickling down of aristocratic tastes" that had transformed the clothing business (department stores) and the food business (restaurants). Unmentioned by Corbin is the similar related effect on the art business. "In the upper and middle bourgeoisie and at certain levels of the petty bourgeoisie, a trickling down of aristocratic tastes was taking place. We understand many of the aspects of the process: J. P. Aron has analyzed the way in which gastronomy gradually penetrated middle-class circles, while Gaillard has shown how the department stores brought within reach of these social groups a standard of quality in clothing hitherto reserved for the aristocracy. The same went for 'illicit' sex -- a little later it would seem, than for gastronomy. The link between these forms of imitative social behavior is obvious. ... The new forms of behavior where sexuality and pleasure are concerned were only one element in a totality of new needs. These needs and the forms of behavior that they determined were transmitted by osmosis to the base of the social pyramid. The attraction felt by the shop assistant for the fille de brasserie and the feeling that led the worker to desert the prostitute of the proletarian brothel for the barmaid are also expressions of this process." As discussed later in the chapter, Corbin's ideas help illuminate Vincent's attitude toward Sien, in particular. 85. become more lucrative Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, p. 99: Intriguingly, Bossenbroek and Kompagnie say that bourgeois prosperity had also made prostitution "more varied, adventurous, imaginative, [and] addictive" than the old proletarian brothels. 86. Repeated campaigns Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, p. 171: Bossenbroek and Kompagnie detail not just the "movements against prostitution" (such as the Dutch Society against Prostitution), but also initiatives to promote birth control. Among the morality-neutral, public-health movements was the so-called "hygienist" movement. In the Netherlands, the hygienist arguments were taken up by the Dutch Society for the Advancement of Medicine. These groups sometimes came into conflict over formulation of public policy, especially the replacement of the Napoleonic Code Pénale, which was still the law in Holland in 1882. A new code was approved in 1881 but not enforced until 1886 (ibid., p. 151). It was shockingly modern. There were no penalties at all for adultery for either men or women, married or unmarried; and no penalties for brothel keepers. About the only prohibition retained was the one against the seduction of minors (under twenty-one). 87. larger enclaves in cities Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, p. 255: "The ministerial inventory of 1909 shows a marked difference between the 3 big cities and the rest of the country. In small and medium-sized towns, there were virtually no brothels anymore and prostitution in general appeared to be on the decline; the latter did not hold true for Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague. 85% of the prostitutes mentioned (1560 out of 1870) worked within the borders of these 3 municipalities." Interestingly, of these four cities, only The Hague officially regulated prostitution (ibid., p. 66). Bossenbroek and Kompagnie make the point that the failure of some major centers to enforce regulation effectively neutered the health benefits everywhere, as prostitutes were extremely mobile (ibid., p. 67). 88. her third illegitimate child "Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.: The only known name for Sien's third child is "Wilhelmus." He was born November 12, 1879, and died March 8, 1880. 89. her thirty-two years"Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.: Sien was born February 22, 1850. Vincent may have met her before her thirty-second birthday, but probably sometime in the waning days of her thirty-second year. We are not ruling out the possibility that they met in August or September of 1881, however. (See Ch. 17, n. 2.) 90. Pale and gaunt BVG 194, 5/4/1882-5/12/1882.

Context:
JLB 225, 5/10/1882: "I'm amazed at the sight of her getting stronger and more cheerful every day, she's so changed that she seems like a completely different person from the sick, pale woman I met this winter."

91. faceful of smallpox BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882. At one point, Vincent says that Sien had only "a mild case of smallpox" (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882), but the fact that he mentions the smallpox twice, the first time soon after she began to model and before Theo knew her identity, suggests they were more harsh than "mild" (JLB 207, 3/3/1882). The resulting pockmarks were probably the basis of his shocking, apologetic description to Van Rappard, who had seen her during his visit in May, as an "ugly, wasted woman" (JLB 232, 5/28/1882). The most telling portrait of Sien suggests that while neither young nor attractive, her features alone would not justify the word "ugly" (see Van Heugten, p. 120, cat. n. 28).

Context:
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "But she has repeatedly suffered a lot, from smallpox for example, and then from throat disease."

92. "This ugly" BVG R8, 5/28/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG R8, 5/28/1882: "Oh, there is gossip enough, because I am always in her company, but why should that bother me? -- I never had such a good assistant as this ugly (???),faded woman. In my eyes she is beautiful, and I find in her exactly what I want; her life has been rough, and sorrow and adversity have put their marks upon her -- now I can do something with her."
JLB 232, 5/28/1882: "I hear gossip about how I'm always together with her, but why should I let that bother me? -- I've never had such a good assistant as this ugly??? wasted woman. To me she's beautiful, and I find in her exactly what I need. Life has given her a drubbing, and sorrow and adversity have left their mark on her -- now I can make use of it."

93. "no longer handsome" BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882.

Context:
BVG 201, 6/2/1882: "And she is useful to me just because she is no longer handsome, no longer young, no longer coquettish, no longer foolish."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "And the fact that she's no longer beautiful, no longer young, no longer silly, no longer coquettish -- those are the very things that make it possible for me to do something with her."

94. Years of rough clients BVG 194, 5/4/1882-5/12/1882: Describing to Theo why Sien was drawn to him, Vincent writes: "because she saw that I wasn't rough" (JLB 225, 5/10/1882; emphasis in original). Elsewhere, he reveals that Sien has been "tormented" in her previous life (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882).

Context:
JLB 225, 5/10/1882: "In a short time she became as gentle as a tame dove, certainly not by force on my part but because she saw that I wasn't rough."

95. Ill-tempered BVG 194, 5/4/1882-5/12/1882.

Context:
JLB 225, 5/10/1882: "First of all, her speech, which is ugly and which is the result of her illness, then her temper, which stems from a nervous disposition, causing her to have moods that many would find unbearable."

96. fits of anger BVG 194, 5/4/1882-5/12/1882.

Context:
JLB 225, 5/10/1882: "First of all, her speech, which is ugly and which is the result of her illness, then her temper, which stems from a nervous disposition, causing her to have moods that many would find unbearable."

97. she swore BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882. There is no other way to interpret this bit of understatement: "Her speech is ugly, and she often says things and uses expressions that our little sister Willemien, for example, who was brought up very differently, wouldn't say" (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882). The first part of the sentence may or may not refer to her throat problems, which Vincent mentions elsewhere, but the second unequivocally refers to her salty language. 98. bathed rarely BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882: Vincent never directly mentions her previous bathing habits, but they can be easily inferred from this and other reports that, at his instigation, Sien began to take baths after he undertook her rehabilitation in the winter. Vincent was quite familiar with what he considered the negative health consequences of poor bathing habits.

Context:
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Thanks to plain food, plenty of walking and fresh air and taking baths, she's much stronger and more robust than then."

99. drank BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882. Vincent relates a conversation that Sien had with a doctor while in hospital: "he said: tell me, do you enjoy a glass of bitters and can you smoke cigars? Yes, she replied. I ask, he said, in order to tell you that you don't need to give that up." (JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882.) Hulsker works himself into high dudgeon over subsequent accusations that Sien was an alcoholic: "It is a curious and sad fact that these few sentences, scribbled down by Vincent without any malice or disapproval, have caused many biographers of Van Gogh to represent Sien as an alcoholic; apart from this passage there is not a single bit of information in the letters or other documents about her that could refer to her drinking habits" (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, pp. 138-139; in addition to the examples cited by Hulsker, see Bailey, p. 117).

We have resisted the implication that she was "alcoholic," but we are confident that, given Sien's life, her profession, and her place at the head of a family of men and boys (she had only one surviving sister), that her forthright "Yes" to the doctor's question should be taken at face value, at least. Nor should the absence of any "malice or disapproval" on Vincent's part be given significant weight: he has ample reason to minimize her flaws, as well as his own weakness for alcohol (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, pp. 138-139). The fact that Sien also smoked cigars -- a habit generally considered male and associated with drink -- also supports the characterization in the text.

Context:
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "I've been greatly entertained by what Sien has told me of her conversations with the professor. It really was amusing, and the man seems to go about his work with a good deal of bonhomie. For example, he said: tell me, do you enjoy a glass of bitters and can you smoke cigars? Yes, she replied."

100. persistent throat affliction BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882. Vincent refers to it as "throat disease," a reference which suggests that it is more serious than a sore throat: "First of all, her speech, which is ugly and which is the result of her illness" (JLB 225, 5/10/1882). It does not appear to be life-threatening, at least by Vincent's reckoning: "But that's no reason why she shouldn't grow old." He is insistently unequivocal about her "ugly speech" (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882), however. Later, he reports her doctor's diagnosis as "quinsy," an inflammation that affects the throat and tonsils: "she had had quinsy, during an earlier miscarriage, and again this winter" (BVG 210, 7/2/1882). Note: JLB provide a slightly different term, referring to Sien as having a "throat illness" (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882).

Context:
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "But she has repeatedly suffered a lot, from smallpox for example, and then from throat disease."

101. found Sien "repulsive" BVG 194, 5/4/1882-5/12/1882.

Context:
BVG 194, 5/4/1882-5/12/1882: "Perhaps I can understand her better than anyone else because she has a few peculiarities which would have been repulsive to many others."
JLB 225, 5/10/1882: "I was perhaps more able than others to understand her, because she has a couple of peculiar habits that many would find repellent."

102. "unbearable" BVG 194, 5/4/1882-5/12/1882.

Context:
BVG 194, 5/4/1882-5/12/1882: "First, her speech, which is very ugly and is a result of her illness; then her temper, caused by a nervous disposition, so that she has fits of anger which would be unbearable to most people."
JLB 225, 5/10/1882: "First of all, her speech, which is ugly and which is the result of her illness, then her temper, which stems from a nervous disposition, causing her to have moods that many would find unbearable."

103. time left for her sister BVG 260, 1/13/1883. About a year later, Vincent recalled that the nine-year-old Maria Wilhelmina was "unclean and neglected" when he first met her (JLB 301, 1/13/1883). 104. "a sickly" BVG R20, 2/4/1883.

Context:
BVG R20, 2/4/1883: "Well, my dear friend, that woman had another child, a sickly, neglected chit of a girl."
JLB 307, 2/4/1883: "Now, my dear friend, this woman had another child as well, a sickly, neglected lamb."

105. at least one miscarriage BVG 210, 7/2/1882. Vincent reports that Sien had health problems "in an earlier miscarriage" (JLB 242, 7/2/1882). There is no indication that Vincent knew anything about Sien's two other recorded children who had died. Thus, the information about a miscarriage, presumably from Sien herself, may represent an effort to cover up those other births, which certainly would have undermined the narrative she gave Vincent about her current pregnancy. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible that she had miscarriages in addition to the four live births recorded. Vincent may also know more about Sien's past than he is telling Theo.

Context:
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "And he says that she had been at death's door more than once, especially during her previous throat illness, in an earlier miscarriage, and then last winter, that she has been profoundly weakened by a life of turmoil and agitation, year after year, that now that she no longer needed to lead that life she'd recover of her own accord, provided there are no complications, with rest, tonics, plenty of fresh air and no heavy labour."

106. "miserable condition" BVG 260, 1/13/1883.

Context:
BVG 260, 1/13/1883: "And when I think it over, would it have been better if the mother had had a miscarriage or if the baby had withered or pined away through lack of milk, if the little girl had become more and more dirty and neglected, and the woman herself had sunk into an almost indescribably miserable condition?"
JLB 301, 1/13/1883: "And when I now reflect, would it have been better if the mother had had a miscarriage, or if the child had withered and wasted away for lack of mother's milk, and if that girl had been left more and more unclean and neglected, and the woman herself in who knows what wretched, near indescribable state"

107. "a worthless rag" BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882.

Context:
BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882: "Nobody cared for her or wanted her, she was alone and forsaken like a worthless rag, and I have taken her up and have given her all the love, all the tenderness, all the care that was in me; she has felt this and she has revived, or rather, she is reviving."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "No one cared for her or wanted her, she was alone and abandoned like a discarded rag and I picked her up and gave her all the love, all the tenderness, all the care, that was in me. She felt that and has grown stronger, or rather is in the process of growing stronger."

108. racked by pain BVG 199, 5/16/1882.

Context:
JLB 229, 5/18/1882: "Christien had a lot of cramp &c., and so it seemed to me best for her to go to Leiden again to find out exactly what was wrong."

109. anemia BVG 350, 12/25/1883-12/28/1883.

Context:
JLB 417, 12/26/1883: "There was anaemia and perhaps already the first signs of consumption, too."

110. "ugly symptoms" BVG 350, 12/25/1883-12/28/1883.

Context:
BVG 350, 12/25/1883-12/28/1883: "There was anemia, and perhaps the beginning of consumption; well, as long as I was with her, she did not grow worse, but in many respects stronger, so that several ugly symptoms disappeared."
JLB 417, 12/26/1883: "There was anaemia and perhaps already the first signs of consumption, too. Well, as long as I was with her she didn't get any worse, but stronger in many respects, so that various nasty symptoms didn't recur."

111. gin and cigarsBVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882. (See Ch. 17, n. 99.)

Context:
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "For example, he said: tell me, do you enjoy a glass of bitters and can you smoke cigars?"

112. streetwise cleverness Cleverness, adaptability, and an ability to "game" the system of public benefits in a city she knew well, are all referenced in this appraisal from Vincent: "What I appreciate in her is that she doesn't play the coquette with me, goes her own way quietly, is thrifty, is very willing to adapt to circumstances as she finds them and to learn, so that she can help me in my work in a thousand ways" (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882). 113. could not read Sien had some minimal writing ability. In a letter from November 1883, Vincent says: "Writes almost indecipherably and incoherently" (JLB 405, 11/11/1883). Vincent reports receiving several letters from her while she was confined in the maternity hospital in late June and early July. And at least some of them were not dictated. "Her last letter to me wasn't written by herself but by the nurse" (JLB 241, 7/1/1882). Later, when Vincent picked Sien up at the hospital, he thanked the ward's head nurse because "I had had three letters from this person telling me how things were going when Sien wasn't allowed to write" (JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882). This suggests that Sien must have had some elementary reading ability, although Vincent later reports (emphatically) that Sien did not read books: "I sometimes regret that the woman I'm with can understand as little of books as of art. But (although she definitely can't) isn't the fact that I'm so attached to her nonetheless proof that there's something sincere between us?" (JLB 312, 2/11/1883.) 114. nominally Roman Catholic BVG 193, 5/14/1882. In addition to the evidence of her profession and lifestyle, Vincent supplies this additional testimony: "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" (JLB 228, 5/16/1882; emphasis added). 115. she gave away Hulsker, "Van Gogh's Dramatic Years in The Hague," p. 21: According to Hulsker, Sien gave her daughter, Maria Wilhelmina, to her own mother; and her son, Willem, to her brother Pieter Anthonie, who was childless until 1908. Exactly when she abandoned them is not clear. Hulsker suggests that Sien left The Hague "soon after 1883" (ibid.). The official records do not show her leaving the city until 1888, but it is unlikely that she waited so long to unload the burden of her children ("Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.). Willem grew up thinking of Pieter Anthonie as his father (ibid.). In 1891, Sien married Arnoldus Franciscus van Wijk in Rotterdam, at which time nine-year-old Willem and fourteen-year-old Maria were made legitimate, but both continued to live with their respective relatives in The Hague, suggesting that the separation was neither recent nor involuntary. 116. she was "an angel" BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882. Vincent says that Sien "is rather like the Angel of the passion by Landelle" (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882). The reference is to the French artist Charles Zacharie Landelle (1821-1908), protégé of Ary Scheffer (1795-1858; French artist, born in Holland), student of Paul Delaroch, and Goupil contractor, well known for his numerous pictures of pretty young girls.

Context:
BVG 201, 6/3/1882: "Her type of profile resembles " L'Ange de la Passion" by Landelle, you know the one I mean, a kneeling figure; the print is published by Goupil."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Now, her profile is rather like the Angel of the passion by Landelle, you know that I mean a kneeling figure -- the print is published by Goupil."

284 117. justly "damned" BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882.

Context:
BVG 201, 6/3/1882: "You see, if Tersteeg, for instance, could do what he liked, he would separate Sien from me, force her back into her former damned life which she has always hated -- and why?"
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "See, if Tersteeg, for example, could do what he wanted, he would take Sien from me and throw her back into that accursed old life that she always loathed."

118. "I have a feeling" BVG 212, 7/6/1882. We have combined elements from both translations.

Context:
BVG 212, 7/6/1882: "I have a feeling of being at home when I'm with her, a sense that she brings my own hearth with her."
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "I have a sense of being at home when I'm with her, a sense that she brings my 'hearth and home' with her ..." (emphasis in original).

119. listed her domestic virtues Zemel, Van Gogh's Progress: Utopia, Modernity, and Late Nineteenth-Century Art, p. 32: Zemel points out that Vincent is operating within a paradigm of domesticity as "a perfected relationship of love and a model for social order and harmony. Only within the family, protected by her husband, could a woman perform her essential task: to nourish, comfort, and construct a spiritual, loving, and productive environment." 120. quiet BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882.

Context:
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "What I appreciate in her is that she doesn't play the coquette with me, goes her own way quietly, is thrifty, is very willing to adapt to circumstances as she finds them and to learn, so that she can help me in my work in a thousand ways. And the fact that she's no longer beautiful, no longer young, no longer silly, no longer coquettish -- those are the very things that make it possible for me to do something with her."

121. mended his clothes BVG 205, 6/3/1882.

Context:
JLB 235, 6/3/1882: "My everyday clothes, however, aren't at all shoddy, because now I have Sien to keep check of them and make minor repairs."

 122. cleaned his studio BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882.

Context:
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Comes every week to scrub the studio to save the money for a cleaner."

123. "things that make" BVG 180, 3/11/1882.

Context:
BVG 180, 3/11/1882: "She had brought me a dish of beans and potatoes. There are things that make life worth living after all."
JLB 210, 3/11/1882: "... she had a portion of string beans and potatoes with her. There are indeed things in life that are worth the effort."

124. favorably to a nurse BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882: The nurse was Helena (Leen) Elisabeth Veerman. Vincent calls her by the familiar form of her name, "Leen" (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882). According to Kools, Veerman left Zundert "as early as 1861" -- so when Vincent was eight to ten years old and Theo was between four and six (Kools, p. 18). It is no doubt significant that this is precisely the period when Vincent probably developed his fondness for babies, children, and care-giving; making the Leen-Sien connection, and the birth of Sien's son Willem in July, particularly significant for him. This was truly his first, and only, opportunity to recreate those perfect days, however flawed the facsimile. In 1876, Vincent recalled to Theo that he often walked home with Veerman, suggesting an unusually close relationship -- not surprising for a boy starved of maternal affection, but complicated by the sexual implications of the comparison to Sien. (See Lubin, pp. 85-86.) Vincent may have been referring to Veerman when he wrote in December 1881, after visiting another old whore, "Even as a boy I sometimes looked up with endless sympathy and respect into a half-withered female face on which it was written, as it were: life and reality have given me a drubbing" (JLB 193, 12/23/1881). These conflicting and conflicted notions of motherhood will reach their ultimate artistic expression in Vincent's great series of portraits, La Berceuse.

Context:
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Do you remember the nursemaid we had years ago in Zundert, Leen Veerman? Sien is a similar type of person, I believe, if my memory is correct."

125. "She knows how" BVG 202, 5/27/1882.

Context:
JLB 231, 5/27/1882: "… she often manages to calm me down, which I couldn't do myself."

126. saw a canny, scheming BVG 164, 12/21/1881: Vincent acknowledges that this is a common view of prostitutes after a previous encounter with one.

Context:
JLB 193, 12/23/1881: "That woman didn't cheat me -- oh, anyone who thinks all those sisters are swindlers is so wrong and understands so little."

127. passive and unquestioning BVG 193, 5/14/1882.

Context:
JLB 228, 5/16/1882: "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."

128. "lass" BVG 193, 5/14/1882.

Context:
BVG 193, 5/14/1882: "I always told her, ' Lass, I fear there will come a time when I shall be left quite without means.'"
JLB 228, 5/16/1882: "I continually said to her ' Lass, I fear a time will come when I'm completely penniless.'"

129. too helpless BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882.

Context:
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "I'm quite used to rolling up my sleeves to do things that the woman is too weak for, such as making the bed or a thousand other chores."

130. "poor creature" BVG 217, 7/19/1882.

Context:
BVG 217, 7/19/1882: "The poor creature has had a very hard time of it."
JLB 248, 7/19/1882: "The poor creature has suffered appallingly."

131. "as meek" BVG 194, 5/4/1882-5/12/1882.

Context:
BVG 194, 5/4/1882-5/12/1882: "In a short time she became as meek as a tame dove, certainly not from my coercing her, but because she saw that I was not rough."
JLB 225, 5/10/1882: "In a short time she became as gentle as a tame dove, certainly not by force on my part but because she saw that I wasn't rough" (emphasis in original).

132. parable of the "poor man" BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882. We have combined elements from both translations.

Context:
BVG 201, 6/2/1882: "You know the old fable or parable: There was a poor man in a town who had but one single little ewe lamb which he had bought and fed, and it had been raised in his house -- it ate his bread and drank from his cup and slept in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "You know the old fable or parable. There was a poor man in a city who had absolutely nothing except for one little ewe lamb that he had bought and fed so that it grew up in his house -- it ate from his meat and drank from his cup and slept in his bosom and was like a daughter to him."

133. "a sheep that would" BVG 314, 8/19/1883. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 314, 8/19/1883: "I cannot say exactly what her expression was, but it was something like a sheep that would say, 'If I must be slaughtered, I won't try to defend myself.'"
JLB 376, 8/19/1883: "I can't say exactly what her expression was like, but something like a sheep wanting to say, if I must be slaughtered I won't resist."

134. "It is wonderful" BVG 314, 8/19/1883.

Context:
BVG 314, 8/19/1883: "Theo, as a matter of fact she does improve, but one has to show her the same thing over and over again, and she can make one feel discouraged; but when -- which rarely happens -- she tries to say what she means and thinks, it is wonderful how pure she is, notwithstanding her depravity."
JLB 376, 8/19/1883: "Theo, the fact is that she does learn, but one has to point out the same thing to her many times, and she'll sometimes drive a person to despair, yet when she -- but it rarely happens -- comes to say what she wants and intends, it's strange how pure she is despite her corruption."

135. praised her delicacy BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882.

Context:
BVG 201, 6/2/1882: "But that is just it -- she has a good heart, has endurance, patience and good will, puts herself out to help me."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "But that's just it -- she has lots of heart -- can endure, has patience, good will, takes trouble, and rolls her sleeves up."

136. "you will always be good" BVG 318, 9/2/1883.

Context:
BVG 318, 9/2/1883: "So I said, 'As long as I know that you are trying your best and are not losing hold of everything and that you are good to the children, as you know I have been to them -- if only you act so that the children always find a mother in you, though you are just a poor servant, though you are just a poor whore, with all your damned faults, you will always be good in my eyes.'"
JLB 380, 9/2/1883: "So I say, as long as I know that you're doing your best and not letting everything go and are good to the children, just as you know I too have been good to them -- as long as you behave in a way that the children still find a Mother in you, even if you're only a poor maidservant, even if you're only a poor whore -- in my eyes you are and will remain good, with the whole damned host of faults" (emphasis in original).

137. heroine in peril BVG 219, 7/23/1882.

Context:
JLB 250, 7/23/1882: "Yet I'm not ashamed to say (though I know very well that the word humanity is out of favour) that for my part I've always felt the need to love one creature or another, and will continue to do so. Preferably an unfortunate or spurned or abandoned creature, I don't know why."

138. himself as her rescuer BVG 216, 7/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "For my part I feel that one should be kind and gentle to women, children and the weak, and I have a sort of respect and emotion for them."

139. "Fiat voluntas" BVG 313, 8/18/1883. Matthew 26: 42. Vincent's original quotes the Latin version, presumably because it sounded more orotund.

Context:
BVG 313, 8/18/1883: "So 'Fiat voluntas.' [Thy will be done]"
JLB 374, 8/17/1883: " Thy will be done."

140. promised to save Sien BVG 217, 7/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 248, 7/19/1882: "What I want is to preserve the lives of Sien and her two children. I don't want her to sink back into that terrible state of illness and misery in which I found her and from which she has been rescued for the time being."

141. saved the injured miners BVG 219, 7/23/1882.

Context:
JLB 250, 7/23/1882: "Once I nursed a poor burnt miner for six weeks or 2 months -- I shared my food with an old man a whole winter long -- and I don't know what else, and now Sien."

142. in a Mater Dolorosa BVG 314, 8/19/1883. A print of a Mater Dolorosa hung on the wall in his father's study in the Zundert parsonage when Vincent was a boy. The artist, however, was probably Paul Delaroche, not Eugène Delacroix.

Context:
JLB 376, 8/19/1883: "And her expression in those rare moments is like that of a Mater Dolorosa by Delacroix or certain heads by Ary Scheffer."

143. idealized dark ladies BVG 314, 8/19/1883. Ary Scheffer, of course, was the painter of two key paintings in Vincent's childhood, Christus Consolator and Christus Remunerator. It cannot be a coincidence that both of the images Vincent mentions as reminding him of Sien, the Mater Dolorosa and the heads by Scheffer, have resonance with his childhood.

Context:
JLB 376, 8/19/1883: "And her expression in those rare moments is like that of a Mater Dolorosa by Delacroix or certain heads by Ary Scheffer."

144. as the brave matriarch BVG R25, 2/9/1883. Vincent puts this proposition (that Sien looks like an image in a magazine illustration, especially illustrations by certain artists) more generally in another reference: "But there was something that struck me in this woman, that as a mother she was so alone and abandoned, and I didn't hesitate, and neither then nor now do I believe I did wrong. For in my view one shouldn't pass by where a woman is a mother and is abandoned and in need. This is a figure like those done by Holl or Fildes." (JLB 307, 2/4/1883.) The reference to English painter Luke Fildes, of course, is meant to evoke his famous and hugely controversial painting Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward (1874), the sharpest statement of the new social realism. Although Vincent attended the Royal Academy exhibition in 1874 at which Applicants was first shown (stirring a great furor), he wrote nothing about it at the time.

Context:
JLB 311, 2/10/1883: "The woman I wrote to you about is, as a type, rather like the central figure in that print, namely the mother with her child on her arm."

145. deportation in Irish Emigrants BVG R25, 2/9/1883. The illustration was Irish Emigrants by English painter Frank Holl, one in a series of illustrations depicting the plight of Irish refugees.

Context:
JLB 311, 2/10/1883: "I must say something else to you as regards Irish Emigrants by Holl."

146. as the desperate woman BVG R21, 2/7/1883.

Context:
JLB 309, 2/8/1883: "As to her life, I believe that, like me, you don't condemn fallen women."

147. "Her Poverty but Not Her Will Consents" BVG R21, 2/7/1883. Vincent says the drawing is by Frank Holl, but adds "[it] hasn't been reproduced as far as I know" (JLB 309, 2/8/1883).

Context:
BVG R21, 2/7/1883: "Frank Hol once expressed it this way -- in a drawing which as far as I know has not yet been reproduced -- he called the drawing 'Her Poverty but Not Her Will Consents.'"
JLB 309, 2/8/1883: "Frank Holl expressed that once in a drawing that hasn't been reproduced as far as I know -- he called the drawing: her poverty but not her will consents."

148. "The Foundling" BVG R24, 1/25/1883-1/30/1883. By English painter Frank Holl. (See Bailey, p. 140 [cat. no. 93], reproduced p. 74). This is the engraving of Holl's painting Deserted, which Bailey also reproduces (Bailey, p. 54, cat. no. 71).

Context:
JLB 304, 1/25/1883: "For example, The foundling by Frank Holl. This shows several policemen in waterproof capes who have taken up a child left as a foundling between the beams and planks of a quay beside the Thames."

149. "The Deserter"BVG 194, 5/4/1882-5/12/1882. Bailey insists that Vincent is referring to Frank Holl's illustration for the Graphic of September 25, 1875, entitled "The Deserter" (Bailey, p. 136; reproduced in Pickvance, p. 35). We cannot dismiss the possibility that Vincent was referring to the image known as The Foundling in its engraved version but as "Deserted" in its original version (see Ch. 17, n. 148). It is true that, if Vincent was mistaken about the title, he had corrected the error by the time he wrote Van Rappard about the The Foundling in late January 1883 (JLB 304, 1/25/1883). But Van Rappard had also visited him in the meantime, and prints of this type had become a full-fledged obsession in the intervening eight months.

Context:
JLB 225, 5/10/1882: "If you know the large drawing from The Graphic by Frank Hall, 'The deserter', I'd say she closely resembles the female figure in it."

150. "She looks just like that" BVG 194, 5/4/1882-5/12/1882. We have altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 194, 5/4/1882-5/12/1882: "If you know the large drawing in the Graphic by Frank Holl, 'The Deserter,' I should say she resembles the woman in it."
JLB 225, 5/10/1882: "If you know the large drawing from The Graphic by Frank Hall, 'The deserter,' I'd say she closely resembles the female figure in it."

151. "a sorrowful look" BVG 262, 1/25/1883-1/29/1883.

Context:
BVG 262, 1/25/1883-1/29/1883: "Such an encounter has the quality of an apparition about it, at least when one recalls it; one sees a pale face, a sorrowful look like an Ecce Homo on a dark background -- all the rest disappears. That is the sentiment of an Ecce Homo, and there is the same expression in reality, but in this case it is on a woman's face."
JLB 305, 1/27/1883: "Such an encounter has something of an apparition about it, at least if one thinks back one sees a pale face, a sorrowful look like an Ecce Homo against a dark background; everything else disappears. That is the sentiment of an Ecce Homo and in reality; the same thing is in the expression, but here it's a woman's face."

152. astounding recall BVG 262, 1/25/1883-1/29/1883. Among many, many examples, this is our favorite. Speaking of Sien and Theo's mistress, Marie, Vincent writes: "I'm thinking of the two women now, and at the same time I thought of a drawing by Pinwell, The sisters, in which I find that 'Dolorosa.' That drawing shows two women in black in a dark room. One has just come home and is hanging her coat on the hatstand. The other briefly smells a primrose on the table while picking up a white piece of needlework." (JLB 305, 1/27/1883; emphasis in original.) It appears that Vincent does not have this drawing by English illustrator G(eorge) J(ohn) Pinwell (which is reproduced in Bailey, p. 141, cat. no. 96) in his collection, he is merely recalling it out of the thousands of similar images, from a single encounter a decade before, if he is to be believed. "[Pinwell's] work is rare, I saw little by him, but that little was so beautiful that now, 10 years later, it has remained just as clear in my mind as when I first became acquainted with it" (JLB 305, 1/27/1883). A mounted copy of this print did, at some point, find its way into Vincent's collection (Bailey, p. 141). 285 153. describe the real world A few of many examples. "You should have seen the sun go down that evening, the streets shone of gold, the way Cuyp used to paint them." (JLB 102, 2/7/1877-2/8/1877). Aelbert Cuyp (1620-1691; Dutch artist) was one of the most important landscape painters of the Dutch Golden Age. "There, by the Schreijerstoren, where one has a view of the IJ, the city looked like a painting by J[acob] Maris" (JLB 115, 5/21/1877-5/22/1877). "Also took another walk to the Zuiderzee, which is 40 minutes from here, over a dyke from which one sees meadows everywhere and farms which always remind me of etchings by Rembrandt" (JLB 120, 6/12/1877). Vincent's mother may have bequeathed to him this sense of an alternate life in images. "How nice that you want to dress up our future home," Anna wrote Theo in 1875 after receiving two prints for the new parsonage in Etten (b2361 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/14/1875). "When we are still strangers in that house, you will talk to us through those two beautiful engravings" (ibid.). 154. He judged people BVG 69, 6/17/1876. When Vincent visits his sister Anna in Welwyn in 1876, he reports on her situation in terms of the prints on her wall: "She looks well and you would be as pleased with her room as I am, with 'Good Friday', 'Christ in the Garden of Olives,' 'Mater Dolorosa' &c. with ivy around them instead of frames." The same sense of images as barometers of character and emotional health is reflected in Vincent's insistence that Theo hang certain prints (JLB 103, 2/26/1877); his own eagerness to hang prints in a new abode (JLB 102, 2/7/1877-2/8/1877); his injunction to combine prints in a therapeutic exercise (JLB 62, 12/13/1875). When, in 1877, he criticizes his Uncle Stricker for not hanging enough prints in his study (JLB 116, 5/28/1877), we know (and probably Vincent does, too) that the relationship is headed for trouble. 155. they most resembled BVG 106, 8/18/1877. Vincent said of his tutor in Amsterdam, Mendes de Costa: "he sometimes reminds me of The imitation of Jesus Christ by [Luis] Ruiperez" (JLB 127, 8/18/1877). About the same time, he compared his uncles unfavorably to the figures in a Rembrandt etching: "In the life of Uncle Jan, of Uncle Cor, of Uncle Vincent, there is much, much good and purity, and yet something is missing. Wouldn't you think that when the two first-mentioned are sitting here, as often happens, talking in the evening in that beautiful, sober room familiar to you, that it's a sight that does the heart good, especially if one looks at them with love as I do? And yet -- the Supper at Emmaus by Rembrandt is even more beautiful, and it could have been that and now it's almost that but not altogether." (JLB 129, 9/4/1877; emphasis in original.) In a far more negative vein in 1882, he compared his father and Uncle Stricker to the grotesque, comical figures in "The Two Augers" by Gérôme (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882). What is important to note is that Vincent uses these images to reflect on the characters of his subjects, although the characters of the depicted figures are, of course, unascertainable. 156. images to woo The best surviving example is Vincent's odd epistolary courtship of the married Caroline Haanebeek, using images from both art and literature, when he was in London and she in The Hague in 1873 (see Chapter 6). In 1881, he reports sending a storm of importuning letters to his intractable Beatrice, Kee Vos. 157. to chastiseBVG 90, 3/15/1877-3/31/1877. When Theo announced that he was having an affair in 1877, Vincent sent him a copy of French artist Gustave Doré's engraving of Judith and Holophernes, an image of female betrayal. (See Ch. 17, n. 161.)

Context:
JLB 111, 4/15/1877: "Do accept my small contribution, I need so much to commune with you by way of such trifles; when I come back to my room I'm reminded of you again and again by the illustrations on the wall."

158. limned his own When Vincent started his career in The Hague in 1869, he admired the "dazzling peacock's feathers" of the Italian painters of opera buffa elegance (JLB 267, 9/19/1882) -- an affection he later recalled with embarrassment. He also made a collection of "well-wrought things by either the Germans or, for example, the English draughtsmen," but later decided that those artists "are rather like birds with only one note in their song" and gave his collection away before leaving England for Paris in 1875 (ibid.). After that, his collection turned to religious images, as is evident from this report from Isleworth in 1876: "As I sit writing to you in my room and it's so very, very quiet and I look around at your portraits and the prints on the wall, Christus Consolator and Good Friday and the Women at the sepulchre and The old Huguenot and The prodigal son by Ary Scheffer and the little boat on a stormy sea" (JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876). When he arrived in Amsterdam in 1877, he started a collection of prints with "Latin and Greek themes" (JLB 123, 7/27/1877) that paralleled his studies. This was the pattern. When his enthusiasm turned to figures in 1881, he began a huge collection of figural images and dismissed almost everything else as "dead weight" (JLB 317, 2/20/1883). The correspondence between mood and image could be quite tight. In late 1882, at a time when Vincent was feeling beaten and resigned, he was attracted to images of resignation and humility: "One was of two reapers, the other, a splendid large woodcut from Monde illustré, of a peasant woman taking a cow into the meadow" (JLB 292, 12/10/1882). 159. tree roots BVG 195, 5/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 222, 5/1/1882: "I've tried to imbue the landscape with the same sentiment as the figure. Frantically and fervently rooting itself, as it were, in the earth, and yet being half torn up by the storm."

160. paths and churchyards BVG 94, 4/30/1877. Describing a church near Dordrecht, Vincent writes: "After church I walked along that path behind the station where we walked together, thinking of you and wishing we could be together -- and kept on walking until I came to the cemetery at the end of a black cinder road running through the meadows that looked so beautiful in the twilight. The cemetery looks a little like that drawing by [Louis] Apol in 'Eigen Haard' [a Dutch magazine], there's a canal around it and there's a house surrounded by pine trees, yesterday evening the light was shining through the windows in such a friendly way -- it's an old house that looks like a parsonage." (JLB 113, 4/30/1877.) It is impossible to know how much of this description is real and how much is imaginary. Is the moat a feature of the real churchyard, or of the Apol drawing? Was there really "light shining through the windows in a friendly way" -- or any light at all -- or is that a metaphorical reference to the acceptance he expects from home for his new career path as a novice pastor? 161. the mere mention BVG 88, 3/16/1877. This image of a dewy-eyed young woman, her eyes rolled heavenward, was painted in various versions by various artists, but it makes its first appearance in Vincent's correspondence in the classic version by Paul Delaroche (JLB 89, 8/26/1876). It is not on Vincent's walls, but in his sister Anna's room in Welwyn in 1876. Six months later, Theo gave a copy of the image (presumably the same Delaroche version he gave Anna) to Vincent to accompany -- and justify -- his announcement that he was having an affair with an "inappropriate" woman. Vincent's subsequent invocation of the same image clearly constituted a rebuff to his brother's condemnation of the relationship with Sien. The image became the argument: "Remember when you did the same thing. I'm not the first Van Gogh brother to have this kind of relationship." By this time, reflecting his changing tastes, Vincent is citing other versions of the "Mater Dolorosa," including one by the British illustrator Helen Paterson (JLB 305, 1/27/1883) and, later, one by Delacroix (JLB 376, 8/19/1883). It is interesting to note that in this argument of images, Vincent had also reversed positions. When Theo sent him the "Dolorosa" in 1877 -- an image of woman as sympathetic sufferer -- Vincent, who was in his religious period, responded by sending back to Theo an image of female treachery: an engraving of Judith and Holophernes by Gustave Doré. According to the Apocryphal Book of Judith 2: 4, Holophernes was an Assyrian general who was seduced and beheaded by Judith (JLB 111, 4/15/1877). Theo could not have missed the overtones of castration.

Context:
JLB 108, 3/16/1877: "The photograph of Mater Dolorosa that you sent is hanging in my room, how beautiful it is. Do you remember it hanging in Pa's study at Zundert?"

162. He dreamed in Andersen BVG R28, 10/22/1882-10/29/1882.

Context:
JLB 275, 10/24/1882-10/27/1882: "It was something out of a fairy tale by Andersen, that collection of discarded buckets, baskets, kettles, soldiers' mess-tins, oil-cans, wire, lamp-posts, stovepipes ... I'll no doubt dream of it tonight."

163. had nightmares of Goya BVG 182, 3/14/1882-3/18/1882. That, at least, is one way to read this obscure passage: "I'd sooner Goya or Gavarni, then, even though they both say 'Nada'. As the last word?? 'Nada,' it seems to me, means exactly the same as those words of Solomon, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, but I can't sleep on that without having nightmares." (JLB 212, 3/16/1882-3/20/1882.) (Francisco José de Goya [y Lucientes], 1746-1828; Spanish artist; [Hippolyte Sulpice Guillaume Chevalier] Paul Gavarni Chevalier, 1804-1866, French artist.) 164. altering, combining, and layering In this process, Vincent often blurred the lines between real, depicted, and imagined. Perhaps the best example is this description of a walk in the countryside near Brussels in 1878. The italicized words in the passage indicate places where it is likely Vincent veered off the path of strict reportage into his favorite clichés of image and emotion, as well as the work of his favorite artists. "The region is very picturesque there, standing on the high slopes are old houses like the huts in the dunes that [Johannes] Bosboom painted. One sees people doing all kinds of farm work, sowing wheat, lifting potatoes, washing turnips, and everything, right down to wood-gathering, is picturesque, and looks very much like Montmartre. There are old houses with ivy or Virginia creeper and charming inns, among the houses I noticed was that of a mustard-maker, one Verkissen. His place would be perfect for a painting by [Matthijs] Thijs Maris, for example. There are places here and there where stones are found and therefore small quarries to which sunken roads with the deep ruts of cart tracks lead, where one sees small white horses with red tassels, and drivers with blue smocks, and the shepherd is not lacking; nor old women in black with white caps reminiscent of those by [Charles] Degroux. There are also places here -- as there are everywhere, for that matter, thank God -- where one feels at home more than elsewhere, where one gets a remarkable, familiar feeling like homesickness, which has something bitterly melancholy about it but which nevertheless strengthens and awakens the spirit in us and gives us new strength and appetite for work and stimulates us, we know not how or why. That day I walked on, past Forest, and took a side road to an old church overgrown with ivy. I saw many lime trees, even more entwined, with one another and even more Gothic, so to speak, than those we saw in the park, and at the side of the sunken road leading to the cemetery twisted bushes and the roots of trees, as gnarled as those Dürer etched in 'Knight, Death and the Devil.'" (JLB 148, 11/13/1878-11/15/1878 or 11/16/1878; emphasis added.) (Albrecht Dürer,1471-1528; German artist.)

Or course, it may be that this remarkably neat and complete collection of so many favorite images was all in evidence on this single walk. Vincent's portraits of people went through the same "blending" process. In recounting to Theo a "fine fragment" of François Fénelon's Les avontures de Télémaque (The Adventures of Telemachus) (1699), Vincent piles imaginative world on imaginative world. "[S]he makes a big fire, around which all the innocent, peaceful family takes pleasure in singing, the whole evening long, while waiting for sweet sleep. … It's especially nice if one imagines it illustrated by the etchings of [Charles Émile] Jacque." (JLB 126, 8/5/1877.) Consider that this is a description of an idealized pastoral family in ancient time, spoken by a distant mytho-historic literary figure, as written by a Frenchman in the nineteenth century, which Vincent "makes more real" by imagining it through the etchings of a nineteenth-century French engraver. It is hard to imagine a greater remove from reality, and yet it is not clear that Vincent is aware of this remove. Vincent applied the same imaginative process even to qualities of light. For example, he compares the light in "modern houses" to the light in paintings of the Golden Age without any apparent regard to the fact that the one was real and the other depicted: "In those days everyone seems to have had a sort of need for a curious, dimmed light that no longer seems to exist, at least there's a tendency to make it cold, harsh and loveless" (JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883).

165. world of prodigal sons BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876.

Context:
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "As I sit writing to you in my room and it's so very, very quiet and I look around at your portraits and the prints on the wall, Christus Consolator and Good Friday and the Women at the sepulchre and The old Huguenot and The prodigal son by Ary Scheffer and the little boat on a stormy sea and one etching, an autumn landscape, view of the heath, which I got from Harry Gladwell on my birthday."

166. and little boats BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876.

Context:
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "As I sit writing to you in my room and it's so very, very quiet and I look around at your portraits and the prints on the wall, Christus Consolator and Good Friday and the Women at the sepulchre and The old Huguenot and The prodigal son by Ary Scheffer and the little boat on a stormy sea and one etching, an autumn landscape, view of the heath, which I got from Harry Gladwell on my birthday."

167. "the medieval paintings" BVG 127, 12/26/1878. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 127, 12/26/1878: "Everything reminded one then of the medieval paintings by, say, Peasant Brueghel, and by so many others who have known how to depict the singular effect of red and green, black and white so strikingly."
JLB 149, 12/26/1878: "Then everything was reminiscent of the medieval paintings by Peasant Bruegel, among others, and by so many others who were so good at expressing the singular effect of red and green, black and white."

168. print by Jozef Israëls BVG 128, 3/1/1879: Jozef Israëls.

Context:
JLB 150, 3/4/1879-3/31/1879: "When the cart with a white horse (l'blanc ch'val) brings an injured man home from the mine, one sees things that remind one of Israëls's shipwreck, and over and over again there is something that moves one."

169. "some quaint figure" BVG 164, 12/21/1881. Vincent also mentions the work of Edouard Frère (1819-1886; French painter) here.

Context:
BVG 164, 12/21/1881: "She reminded me of some quaint figure by Chardin or Frère or perhaps Jan Steen."
JLB 193, 12/23/1881: "She slightly resembled a nice figure by Chardin or Frere or possibly Jan Steen."

170. coal miners' strike BVG 238, 10/10/1882: Vincent describes a print he acquired three years after having witnessed a strike (about which he never wrote a word). "The other day I saw, and also have in my collection, a large woodcut after a painting by [Alfred Philippe] Roll, A miners' strike. ... This shows the yard of a coal-mine, in front of which there's a large group of men, women and children who have evidently stormed the building. They stand or sit around an overturned cart, and are held back by mounted police. One chap throws a stone, but a woman tries to grab his arm. The characters are outstanding, and it's roughly and boldly drawn, and certainly painted in that way too, entirely as befits the nature of the subject." (JLB 272, 10/15/1882.) This seems very odd. If Vincent did actually witness such a scene, it seems only natural that his experience would be a part of his description: that he would adduce the ways in which the artist has caught the reality that he remembers because he was there. But for Vincent, it is the other way around -- the image gives validity to his memory. Depiction validates reality. Either he wasn't really there, or he wasn't connected to the experience in any meaningful way. The image gives emotional weight to an event at which Vincent was never more than a disengaged spectator.

Context:
JLB 272, 10/15/1882: "The other day I saw, and also have in my collection, a large woodcut after a painting by Roll, A miners' strike."

171. Any poverty BVG 126, 11/15/1878: This comment about the drivers comes after three full paragraphs about the plight of the old white horses that they drive, and it takes Vincent only one sentence about their plight before turning to the art depicting that plight.

Context:
JLB 148, 11/13/1878-11/15/1878 or 11/16/1878: "And now, as far as the drivers themselves are concerned, with their dirty, dingy clothes, they seemed to be sunk or rooted in poverty almost more deeply than that long row or rather group of poor people drawn by master [Charles] Degroux in his paupers' pew."

172. or suffering BVG 130, 6/1/1879. The ultimate example occurs in the Borinage where, with real poverty and oppression all around him, Vincent turns to Uncle Tom's Cabin to bewail poverty and oppression in the world. His letters contain barely a word about the miners and their rich overlords, but Little Nell and Simon LeGree touch Vincent's soul.

Context:
JLB 152, 6/19/1879: "Am currently reading Uncle Tom's cabin a lot -- there's still so much slavery in the world -- and in that astonishingly beautiful book this extremely momentous matter is treated with such wisdom, with a love and a zeal and interest in the genuine welfare of the poor and oppressed, that one can't help coming back to it again and again and finding more in it each time."

173. all love's real lessons BVG 157, 11/12/1881.

Context:
JLB 183, 11/12/1881: "If I saw that she took a man she didn't love because he was rich, I would admit I was wrong and ask forgiveness for my short-sightedness, and I would say, I've taken a painting by Brochart for one by Jules Goupil, a fashion plate for a figure by Boughton, Millais or Tissot.'

174. "feeling for things themselves" BVG 218, 7/21/1882.

Context:
BVG 218, 7/21/1882: "The feeling for things themselves, for reality, is of greater importance than the feeling for painting; anyway it is more productive and more inspiring."
JLB 249, 7/21/1882: " Feeling things themselves, reality, is more important than feeling paintings, at least more productive and life-giving."

175. insisted that the "reality" BVG 133, July 1880.

Context:
BVG 133, July 1880: "And there is something of M. Maris or of Millet in Bunyan, a reality that, in a manner of speaking, is more real than reality itself, something hitherto unknown that, if only you can read it, will tell you untold things."
JLB 155, 6/22/1880-6/24/1880: "And in Bunyan there's something of M. Maris or of Millet, a reality more real than reality, so to speak, but you have to know how to read him; then there are extraordinary things in him, and he knows how to say inexpressible things."

176. Maris "is more real" BVG 133, July 1880.

Context:
BVG 133, July 1880: "And there is something of M. Maris or of Millet in Bunyan, a reality that, in a manner of speaking, is more real than reality itself, something hitherto unknown that, if only you can read it, will tell you untold things."
JLB 155, 6/22/1880-6/24/1880: "And in Bunyan there's something of M. Maris or of Millet, a reality more real than reality, so to speak, but you have to know how to read him; then there are extraordinary things in him, and he knows how to say inexpressible things."

177. "Art," "is the essence" BVG 218, 7/21/1882. We have excavated this essence from a longer, more rambling statement but without changing the meaning: "Feeling things themselves, reality, is more important than feeling paintings, at least more productive and life-giving. Because I now have such a broad, such a large sense of art and of life itself, of which art is the essence, it sounds to me so shrill and false when there are people like Tersteeg who are always on the hunt." (JLB 249, 7/21/1882.) Vincent appears to be responding to a call from Theo to be more realistic, to which he responds, in typical Vincent fashion, by appearing to agree while conceding nothing: by claiming that art is the essence of life, he portrays himself as both ultimately realistic and ultimately devoted to the higher calling of art.

Context:
BVG 218, 7/21/1882: "Because I now have such a broad, such an expansive feeling for art and for life itself, of which art is the essence, it sounds so shrill and false when people like Tersteeg do nothing but harry one."
JLB 249, 7/21/1882: "Because I now have such a broad, such a large sense of art and of life itself, of which art is the essence, it sounds to me so shrill and false when there are people like Tersteeg who are always on the hunt."

178. lessons from printsSee Ch. 8, n. 324. 179. "The Life of a Horse"BVG 126, 11/15/1878.

Context:
BVG 126, 11/15/1878: "Some of these old white horses resemble a certain old aquatint engraving, which you perhaps know, an engraving that has no great art value, it is true, but which struck me, and made a deep impression upon me. I mean the last from that series of prints called 'The Life of a Horse.'"
JLB 148, 11/13/1878-11/15/1878 or 11/16/1878: "Some of those old white horses resemble a certain old aquatint that you perhaps know, an engraving with no very great artistic value but which nevertheless struck me and made an impression on me. I mean the last of the series of prints titled 'The life of a horse.'"

180. "The Five Ages" BVG 239, 10/29/1882.

Context:
BVG 239, 10/29/1882: "I may be mistaken, that you spoke about large drawings, types or heads of people, and I am very curious to see them. If there were more things of his as beautiful as a print I found recently, 'Les 5 ages d'un buveur' [the five ages of a drinker], or like that figure of an old man under a chestnut tree which I mentioned to you before -- yes, then he would perhaps be the greatest of all."
JLB 277, 10/29/1882: "If there were more things by him as beautiful as a print by him I recently found, The 5 ages of a drinker, or as that figure of an old man under a chestnut tree I told you about before, well, then he was perhaps the master of them all."

181. a whole more eloquent BVG 116a, 12/30/1877: Vincent honed this obsession with combinations of images using his own print collection and his brother's. In 1877, he sent back a print that Theo had given him for Christmas because "it belongs in your collection" (JLB 138, 12/30/1877). He applied the same principles to his reading, suggesting that a writer's entire oeuvre was a unit that spoke with its own distinctive voice: "one must read Dickens or Balzac or Zola in their entirety," he wrote Van Rappard in 1882, "to know them separately" (JLB 267, 9/19/1882). There are other agendas operating here, of course, as there usually are. Vincent is no doubt showing off his erudition to his non-intellectual friend; and he is simultaneously arguing to Theo that his own work should not be judged on the basis of a few drawings, but should be looked at as a whole -- one of many strategies to resist sending Theo a sample of his work. 286 182. [An old man] is sitting BVG 181, 3/11/1882.

Context:
JLB 211, 3/11/1882: "… an old man sits in a hut by the fireplace in which a small piece of peat barely glows in the twilight. For it's a dark hut the old man sits in, an old hut with a small window with a little white curtain. His dog, who's grown old with him, sits beside him -- those two old creatures look at each other, they look each other in the eye, the dog and the old man. And meanwhile the man takes his tobacco box out of his trousers pocket and he fills his pipe like that in the twilight."

183. Israëls's Silent Dialogue

BVG 181, 3/11/1882: Jozef Israëls. Vincent refers to this painting as "An Old Man," but the painting described is clearly Dialogue Silencieux which was exhibited at the Salon in 1882. Vincent introduces his description this way: "Here's a list of Dutch paintings intended for the Salon" (JLB 211, 3/11/1882). (See Bailey, p. 130, cat. no. 49, ill. p. 35.)

Context:
JLB 211, 3/11/1882: "Israels, 'an old man' (if he weren't a fisherman he'd be Tom Carlyle [1795-1881; Scottish writer] -- the author of the French Revolution and Oliver Cromwell [1599-1658; English soldier and politician] -- for he definitely has that distinctive head of Carlyle), an old man sits in a hut by the fireplace in which a small piece of peat barely glows in the twilight."

184. legends, or captions Taine, Notes on England: A Nineteenth-Century Frenchman's View of the Manners -- and Morals -- of the English (Notes Sur l'Angleterre), pp. 262-263: Hippolyte Taine called them "problem pictures, with the key to the enigma printed below." In his essay on English animal painters at the time, Taine is devastating on the subject. "[The artist] tries to suggest a line of thought to the spectator; he paints animals as a fabulist. And the scene in which he sets his animals makes a sort of problem picture, with the key to the enigma printed below it. For example, Peace and War, Dignity and Impudence, Low Life and High Life, Alexander and Diogenes, and A Dialogue at Waterloo -- all these expressed in canine types and attitudes. The same procedure is followed by figure painters: the essence, for them, is in the anecdote, the story, the literary attribute, the representation of some aspect of mores which they have chosen as a subject. The pleasure of the eye, harmony, and beauty of line and colour are all relegated to secondary roles. ... I have seen a score of his pictures -- First Love, The Wolf and the Lamb, Open your mouth and shut your eyes, The Battle Interrupted, The Younger Brother, The wife of the Vicar of Wakefield. It would be impossible to find anything more expressive; never has so much effort been expended in trying to address the mind by way of the senses, ... What connoisseurs of human nature these painters are! What clever contrivance, and what aptitude in rendering moral values into physical terms! ... But what a pity it is that these artists, instead of writing, took to painting!" 185. There is a poem BVG 185, 4/1/1882-4/15/1882. The Thomas Hood poem was "The Lady's Dream." In a very helpful note, Zemel provides further information on Vincent's source: "Van Gogh's memory conflated two well-known poems of social protest by Hood, 'The Lady's Dream' [1844] and 'The Song of the Shirt' [1843]. Part of a series of eight poems published in Hood's Magazine 1843-4, these poems were based on incidents described in police reports published in the London Times. Hood's own illustration for 'The Lady's Dream,' titled The Modern Belinda, shows an elaborately gowned lady holding a lapdog and attended by a peacock while surrounded by flying skeletal sylphs. See Selected Poems of Thomas Hood, ed. John Clarke (Cambridge, Mass. 1970), p. 310." (Zemel, p. 367, n. 29.)

Context:
JLB 215, 4/6/1882: "There's a poem by Tom Hood, I believe, in which he tells of a great lady who can't sleep at night because during the day, when she went out to buy a frock, she saw the poor seamstresses pale, consumptive, emaciated, working in an airless room. And now she has twinges of remorse about her wealth and wakes up at night in panic. In short, it's a slender, white female figure, restless in the dark night."

186. The Great Lady Known only from a sketch: Nude Woman, Half-Length (also known as The Great Lady), F 185 JH 128, early April, 1882, sketch in letter, 7.9 x 4.3 in., 20 x 11 cm., Van Gogh Museum. 187. soundly rejected works BVG 299, 7/11/1883: Vincent is unusually droll in his criticism of Breitner's work when he visits the latter's studio in the summer of 1883. He describes two paintings: "As you see from the [first] illustration, painted with a not unmystical scene, probably taken from Revelation, one would imagine at first sight. Yet I'm informed that they are artillery manoeuvres in the dunes. Off the cuff I would put it at over 4 metres long by 3/4 of a metre." (JLB 361, 7/11/1883.) To illustrate his point, he provides in the margin of his letter an "illustration" consisting of a long narrow box with the barely suggested figures of horses, riders, and an artillery piece. The second painting fares no better : "[It] was a story of a man who was leaning against the wall on the extreme left of the painting, while on the far right various types of ghostly women stood gawking at him, while care had been taken to leave a substantial space between these two groups" (ibid.). It is absolutely clear that what frustrates Vincent about these works is that they have no discernible narrative. His arch efforts to provide narratives ("probably taken from Revelations," and "a story about a man leaning against a wall"), and the mock pontifical summary ("My considered opinion is that it is a good 4 meters long by 3/4 meter broad") provide one of the few moments of levity in this period of otherwise mostly depressed, distraught, and argumentative letters. JLB suspect that Vincent is referring to George Hendrik Breitner's Huzarencharge (Charge of the Hussars) (ibid., 22). 188. "mystical" BVG 299, 7/11/1883.

Context:
BVG 299, 7/11/1883: "As you see from the above illustration, the first one is a somewhat mystical scene, probably taken from Revelation, or so one might be inclined to think at first."
JLB 361, 7/11/1883: "As you see from the above illustration, painted with a not unmystical scene, probably taken from Revelation, one would imagine at first sight."

189. mere "impression" BVG 241, 11/2/1882-11/3/1882: At this time, in the heat of his obsession with figures, he relegates landscape to a subsidiary position in the hierarchy of art (a position to which his brother takes exception), so that mere "impressions" are more permissible in landscape drawing than in figure drawing.

Context:
BVG 241, 11/2/1882 or 11/3/1882: "In reality it is something like 'The Reapers' by Millet, severe, so you understand that one mustn't make a snow effect of it, which would be merely an impression and would only then have its raison d'être if it were done by way of a landscape."
JLB 280, 11/5/1882: " The reality is like Millet's The gleaners -- austere -- so you will understand that one shouldn't turn it into a snow effect, which would only be an impression and have no raison d'être unless the landscape is the whole point."

190. "noble and serious" BVG 240, 11/1/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 240, 11/1/1882: "What I appreciate in Herkomer, Fildes, Holl and the other founders of the Graphic, the reason why they still mean more to me than Gavarni and Daumier, and will continue to, is that while the latter seem to look on society with malice, the former -- as well as men like Millet, Breton, De Groux, Israëls -- chose subjects which are as true as Gavarni's or Daumier's, but have something noble and a more serious sentiment."
JLB 278, 11/1/1882: "What I value in Herkomer, in Fildes, in Holl and the other founders of The Graphic, why I find and will continue to find them even more sympathetic than Gavarni and Daumier, is that, while the latter seem to view society more with mockery, the former, like such men as Millet, Breton, Degroux and Israels, choose subjects which -- while as true as those of Gav. or Daum. -- have something noble and in which there's a more serious sentiment."

191. "concentrate on what makes us" BVG 237, 10/22/1882.

Context:
BVG 237, 10/22/1882: "What impressed me so much at the time was something so stout and manly in Daumier's conception, something that made me think it must be good to think and to feel like that and to overlook or ignore a multitude of things and to concentrate on what makes us sit up and think and what touches us as human beings more directly and personally than meadows or clouds."
JLB 274, 10/22/1882: "But I remember that it struck me so forcefully that there was something so firm and manly in Daumier's approach that I thought: it must be good to feel and think like that and overlook or ignore a mass of things so as to concentrate on something that's thought-provoking and appeals to a human being as a human being more directly than meadows or clouds."

192. "rises above nature" BVG 257, 1/3/1883; emphasis added.

Context:
BVG 257, 1/3/1883: " That's the highest thing in art, and there art sometimes rises above nature -- in Millet's 'Sower,' for instance, there is more soul than in an ordinary sower in the field."
JLB 298, 1/3/1883: " That is the highest art, and in that art is sometimes above nature -- as, for instance, in Millet's sower, in which there is more soul than in an ordinary sower in the field" (emphasis in original).

193. "a mighty, deep" BVG 181, 3/11/1882.


Context:
BVG 181, 3/11/1882: "I find such a mighty, deep, practical, silent philosophy in this picture -- it seems to say, 'Savoir souffrir sans se plaindre, ça c'est la seule chose practique, c'est là la grande science, la leçon à apprendre, la solution du problème de la vie’ [Knowing how to suffer without complaining, that is the only practical thing, it is the great science, the lesson to learn, the solution of the problem of life.]"
JLB 211, 3/11/1882: “I find such a wonderfully elevated, practical, wordless philosophy in this painting, it seems to be saying, to know how to suffer without complaining, that's the only practical thing, that's the great skill, the lesson to learn, the solution to life's problem."

194. "Patient, submissive, willing" BVG 181, 3/11/1882: In the last line of this passage, we have substituted "butcher" for the more commonly used translation "knacker" -- a British term for someone who buys worn-out horses and "processes" their carcasses for other uses.

Context:
BVG 181, 3/11/1882: "… they are standing there, patient, submissive, willing, resigned and quiet. They have still to draw the heavy boat up the last bit of the way -- the job is almost finished. Stop a moment. They are panting, they are covered with sweat, but they do not murmur, they do not protest, they do not complain, not about anything. They got over that long ago, years and years ago. They are resigned to living and working somewhat longer, but if they have to go to the knacker tomorrow, well, so be it, they are ready."
JLB 211, 3/11/1882: "… they stand there, patiently submissive, willing, resigned, still. They'll soon have to drag the heavy boat the last bit of the way, the job's almost done. They stand still for a moment, they pant, they're covered in sweat, but they don't murmur, they don't protest -- they don't complain -- about anything. They're long past that, years ago already. They're resigned to living and working a while longer, but if they have to go to the knacker's yard tomorrow, so be it, they're ready for it."

287 195. "ill-treated old nags" BVG 181, 3/11/1882.

Context:
BVG 181, 3/11/1882: "Those nags, those poor, ill-treated old nags, black, white and brown; they are standing there, patient, submissive, willing, resigned and quiet."
JLB 211, 3/11/1882: "Those nags, those poor, sorry-looking nags, black, white, brown, they stand there, patiently submissive, willing, resigned, still."

196. old men despairing

BVG 247, 11/24/1882: Vincent readdresses this favorite subject (Worn Out [F 997 JH 267]) in November 1882.

Context:
JLB 286, 11/24/1882: "Today and yesterday I drew two figures of an old man with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands."

197. "There is more soul" BVG 257, 1/3/1883.

Context:
BVG 257, 1/3/1883: "That's the highest thing in art, and there art sometimes rises above nature -- in Millet's 'Sower,' for instance, there is more soul than in an ordinary sower in the field."
JLB 298, 1/3/1883: "That is the highest art, and in that art is sometimes above nature -- as, for instance, in Millet's sower, in which there is more soul than in an ordinary sower in the field" (emphasis in original).

198. should be "personal" BVG 218, 7/21/1882.

Context:
BVG 218, 7/21/1882: "Rembrandt and Ruysdael are sublime, for us as well as for their contemporaries, but there is something in the moderns that seems to us more personal and intimate."
JLB 249, 7/21/1882: "Rembrandt and Ruisdael are sublime, for us as much as for their contemporaries, but there's something in the moderns that strikes us as more personally intimate."

199. "what touches us" BVG 237, 10/22/1882.

Context:
BVG 237, 10/22/1882: "What impressed me so much at the time was something so stout and manly in Daumier's conception, something that made me think it must be good to think and to feel like that and to overlook or ignore a multitude of things and to concentrate on what makes us sit up and think and what touches us as human beings more directly and personally than meadows or clouds."
JLB 274, 10/22/1882: "But I remember that it struck me so forcefully that there was something so firm and manly in Daumier's approach that I thought: it must be good to feel and think like that and overlook or ignore a mass of things so as to concentrate on something that's thought-provoking and appeals to a human being as a human being more directly than meadows or clouds."

200. prayer, flowers and kittens b2702 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/19/1874: Theo, always the sensitive barometer of taste, sent his little brother Cor pictures of kittens on his seventh birthday. "The pictures of those kittens were so lovely," his mother thanked him. "So nice. Cor is so happy with them and Lies will surely get his collection." 201. "sentiment" BVG 251, 12/3/1882-12/5/1882: Here Vincent is referring to landscapes, but he uses "sentiment" to apply to figures as well, with the same exalted status. He called a favorite picture by Gustave Doré "noble in sentiment" (JLB 267, 9/19/1882) and another one by Dutch painter Charles Rochussen ("brilliant in sentiment" (ibid.). He said about the figures of Millet, Breton, DeGroux and Israëls: "[they] have something noble and in which there's a more serious sentiment" (JLB 278, 11/1/1882). "What I'm looking for," he wrote Van Rappard, "[is] much more than that the sentiment of the whole" (JLB 275, 10/24/1882-10/27/1882). He said about his first major figure drawing, Sorrow (F 1655 JH 259): "I've nevertheless tried to put some sentiment into this figure" (JLB 216, 4/10/1882). In 1885, Vincent gave perhaps his ultimate statement on the importance of sentiment in art: "true painters -- allow themselves to be guided by that conscience that's called sentiment; their soul, their brains aren't led by the brush, but the brush is led by their brains" (JLB 534, 10/10/1885).

Context:
BVG 251, 12/3/1882-12/5/1882: "Hardly anyone knows that the secret of beautiful work lies mainly in truth and sincere sentiment."
JLB 291, 12/4/1882-12/9/1882: "Almost no one knows that the secret of beautiful work is to a large extent good faith and sincere feeling."

202. "to make" BVG 218, 7/21/1882.

Context:
BVG 218, 7/21/1882: "I want to make drawings that touch some people.".
JLB 249, 7/21/1882: "I want to make drawings that move some people" (emphasis in original).

203. "The secret of beautiful landscape" BVG 251, 12/3/1882-12/5/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 251, 12/3/1882-12/5/1882: "Hardly anyone knows that the secret of beautiful work lies mainly in truth and sincere sentiment."
JLB 291, 12/4/1882-12/9/1882: "Almost no one knows that the secret of beautiful work is to a large extent good faith and sincere feeling."

204. "heartbreaking" BVG 593, 6/2/1889.

Context:
BVG 593, 6/2/1889: "Daubigny and Rousseau have done just that, expressing all that it has of intimacy, all that vast peace and majesty, but at the same time adding a feeling so individual, so heart-breaking."
JLB 777, 5/31/1889-6/6/1889: "Daubigny and Rousseau did that, though, with the expression of all the intimacy and all the great peace and majesty that it has, adding to it a feeling so heartbreaking, so personal."

205. from an early age BVG 33, 8/13/1875. The first specific mention of Vincent's collecting a landscape image comes in 1874 when he writes: "Have I sent you a lithograph of [Constant] Troyon, Morning effect? [Louis-François] Français, Last fine days?" However, a year and a half earlier, in compiling a long list of his favorite artists, Vincent mentions a number of well-known landscapists, including Constant Troyon (JLB 17, January 1874). 206. before sublime Nature BVG 593, 6/2/1889.

Context:
JLB 777, 5/31/1889-6/6/1889: "Daubigny and Rousseau did that, though, with the expression of all the intimacy and all the great peace and majesty that it has, adding to it a feeling so heartbreaking, so personal."

207. "Autumn Effect" BVG R15, 10/29/1882. Vincent describes one such autumn effect around this time: "Here's a part of the woods in the evening after rain. I can't tell you how superb that effect was in nature, with the bronze of the greenery and the fallen leaves here and there. I wish you could walk there in the evening sometime, in the superb autumn woods here." (JLB 261, 9/9/1882.) Later the same year, Vincent made landscapes with "effects" for winter, spring, and another for fall (JLB 271, 10/8/1882). In the same letter, he writes, "How beautiful it is outdoors -- I'm doing my best to capture autumnal effects. I'm writing to you in great haste." (ibid.) The following year (1883), he justifies his hasty departure for Drenthe partly "because the time of autumnal effects has already begun, and I hope to capture some of them" (JLB 381, 7/5/1883).

Context:
BVG R15, 10/29/1882: "Among the Reads I have an 'Autumn Effect' and a 'Moonlight Scene' and a 'Snow Effect,' which are very beautiful."
JLB 273, 10/22/1882: "Among other things by Read I have an autumnal effect and a moonlight and a snow which are very beautiful."

208. "Evening Effect" BVG 236, 10/8/1882.

Context:
BVG 236, 10/8/1882: "I also started another one with many more figures, the last summer guests on the beach -- an evening effect."
JLB 271, 10/8/1882: "I've also started another [drawing] with many more figures -- the last visitors to the seaside -- an evening effect."

209. "Snow Effect" BVG R15, 10/29/1882. The reference is English artist Samuel Read. We do not mean to suggest that Vincent's landscapes, either at this time or later, were merely "effects," only that this genre of landscapes was an important part of Vincent's visual world. There is evidence that he understood the limitations of such works: "I've got the effect in the watercolour, I believe, but it isn't yet strong enough in character for my taste. The reality is like Millet's The gleaners -- austere -- so you will understand that one shouldn't turn it into a snow effect, which would only be an impression and have no raison d'être unless the landscape is the whole point." (JLB 280, 11/5/1882.)

Context:
BVG R15, 10/29/1882: "Among the Reads I have an 'Autumn Effect' and a 'Moonlight Scene' and a 'Snow Effect,' which are very beautiful."
JLB 273, 10/22/1882: "Among other things by Read I have an autumnal effect and a moonlight and a snow which are very beautiful."

210. "that almost everybody" BVG 299, 7/11/1883. Bonger translates the first part of this sentence: "What I want to make is a drawing which will not be exactly understood by everyone" (BVG 299, 7/11/1883). We believe this translation misinterpret Vincent's meaning, although in different ways. From the context, it is clear that Vincent wanted to make images that "spoke" to the largest possible audience. Bonger's translation appears to attribute to Vincent an elitist ambition to create work that can only be fully understood by a small group, or not completely understood by most people. Neither of these can be right. Based on this interpretation of Vincent's larger ambition, we have changed the translation slightly for purposes of clarification.

Context:
BVG 299, 7/11/1883: "I want to do a drawing that not quite everybody will understand, the figure simplified to the essentials, with a deliberate disregard of those details that do not belong to the actual character and are merely accidental."
JLB 361, 7/11/1883: "My aim is to do a drawing that not exactly everyone will understand, the figure expressed in its essence in simplified form, with deliberate disregard of those details that aren't part of the true character and are merely accidental" (emphasis in original).

211. "to the essentials" BVG 299, 7/11/1883.

Context:
BVG 299, 7/11/1883: "I want to do a drawing that not quite everybody will understand, the figure simplified to the essentials, with a deliberate disregard of those details that do not belong to the actual character and are merely accidental."
JLB 361, 7/11/1883: "My aim is to do a drawing that not exactly everyone will understand, the figure expressed in its essence in simplified form, with deliberate disregard of those details that aren't part of the true character and are merely accidental" (emphasis in original).

212. often a minor one The two best contemporaneous examples are his fixation on Madame François in Zola's Le Ventre de Paris (The Belly of Paris) (JLB 250, 7/23/1882) and Pascal Rougon in La Faute de l'abbé Mouret (The Sin of Father Mouret), also by Zola. Both are characters that appear briefly in their respective installments of the Rougon-Marquart series; both are more caricature than character, especially when compared to the many more fully-fleshed characters in both books. "[Rougon] and Mme François in Le ventre de Paris are the most sympathetic figures to me" (JLB 259, 8/26/1882). 288 213. if it were Dickens We make this assessment on the basis of cumulative inferential evidence, but here is a passage where Vincent comes close to articulating it himself: "And similarly the figures of either the English draughtsmen or the English writers, on account of their Monday morning-like sobriety and deliberate austerity and prose and analysis, continue to attract me as something solid and firm which gives one something to hold onto on days when one is feeling weak. And those of Balzac and Zola among the French writers just as much." (JLB 274, 10/22/1882.) The fact that he can put Balzac and Zola together is not surprising, given their common Romantic roots, but to draw the latter under the same tent with Dickens, or even Eliot (not to mention Bulwer-Lytton) suggests a very early-nineteenth-century reading of a very late-nineteenth-century author. 214. reductive imaginary world Raised on his father's bromides and his mother's aphorisms, he embraced the simple wisdom of clichés not just in his imagery but also in his letters -- "don't fear the storm but dread the calm, treacherous, enchanted ground" (JLB 407, 11/26/1883); "And yet the apples never fall far from the tree" (JLB 788, 7/8/1889-7/12/1889); "Too many cooks spoil the broth" (JLB 291, 12/4/1882-12/9/1882); "Full steam ahead" (JLB 568, 8/18/1886). Vincent used this last cliché in its French form: "And I don't yet see that my 'it'll go full steam ahead' is wrong, since I myself can see that full steam ahead is in prospect" (ibid.). 215. He loved cartoons See Boime, "Van Gogh, Thomas Nast, and the Social Role of the Artist," pp.71-111, even though we think he overplays the relationship between the Van Gogh and Nast. 216. British magazine Punch BVG R16, 10/31/1882.

Context:
JLB 276, 10/29/1882: "In the first there's a print -- one of the old Swains -- that is inexpressibly great in character."

217. "There is pith" BVG 265, 2/8/1883. The story of how Vincent came to know and appreciate Daumier's work is complex and unfolds over time. Honoré Daumier appears to have come to Vincent's attention soon after he moved to Brussels from the Borinage in late 1880. The name makes its first appearance in the letters of January 1881, in a long list of figure artists whose work he admires (JLB 162, January 1881). From later letters, it seems that his initial reaction to Daumier was not as passionate as with other artists. About a group of figure artists of which Daumier was apparently one, he wrote, "the figure painters even inspired in me a kind of fairly cool respect rather than warm sympathy" (JLB 274, 10/22/1882). "I've always believed him to be highly gifted," Vincent later recalled, somewhat dismissively (JLB 277, 10/29/1882). That initial coolness was a function of the images by which Vincent first came to know Daumier's work: in particular, his caricatures. "In the past I saw caricatures by him," Vincent wrote, "and perhaps because of them got an idea about him that wasn't the right one" (ibid.). Here Vincent appears to be using the word "caricature" in a narrow sense to apply only to Daumier's exaggerated portraits of real people -- a form of ridicule by illustration that Vincent did not care for, probably because it seemed like a debasement of the high art of figure drawing for low purposes. In the text, the term "caricature" is used in its broader sense (i.e., "social caricature") (ibid.).

It wasn't until Vincent saw a Daumier illustration for a Balzac novel (almost certainly Le Père Goriot, for which Daumier did four wood engravings as part of the monumental publication of the author's entire La Comédie humaine, with illustrations, between 1842 and 1855) that Vincent's opinion of the artist changed. (For more on the Daumier illustrations for Balzac, see Loyrette, Daumier, pp. 188-189.) Also, at a time when Vincent was arguing with his brother over the relative merits of figure drawing, Theo's enthusiasm for Daumier no doubt contributed to Vincent's. Both brothers were responding to the wave of interest in Daumier's work that followed a major, adulatory exhibition at Durand-Ruel in April 1878 (with Victor Hugo as honorary chairman); followed by a considerable rise in the prices paid for his work; followed by the artist's death in February 1879. By the fall of 1882, Vincent was aware that Daumier's caricatures were "only a very small part of his work and ... are definitely not his most typical or main work" (JLB 277, 10/29/1882). In October 1882, he called the recently deceased Frenchman "perhaps the master of them all," (ibid.) and sent Van Rappard three "very beautiful" Daumier illustrations, complaining that "Daumiers are becoming rare" (JLB 267, 9/19/1882) (also, no doubt, a result of recent events).

However, somewhat contrarily, Vincent still professed ignorance about the "other parts" of Daumier's work. In November 1882, he responded to what was clearly a lengthy and enthusiastic description of Daumier's work from Theo: "in you I find someone who understands much about the great men, and I find it delightful to hear things about them now and then that I don't know, like, for example, what you write to me about Daumier. The series of portraits of politicians &c., the painting of the 3rd-class carriage, the Revolution -- I don't know any of them." (JLB 280, 11/5/1882.) Still, Vincent continued to have reservations about Daumier's "good will" as an artist (i.e., his sympathy for his subjects), at one point suspecting that both Daumier and Gavarni "view society more with mockery" (JLB 278, 11/1/1882). By February of the following year (1883), however, all doubts seem to have lifted and Vincent issues his most ringing encomium, calling Daumier "amusing and yet full of emotion and passion. ... I find a passion [in his work] that might be likened to white-hot iron" (JLB 310, 2/8/1883). The influence of Daumier on Vincent's later work will be discussed in subsequent chapters.

Context:
BVG 265, 2/8/1883: " There is pith and a sober depth in him, he is witty and yet full of sentimental passion; sometimes, for instance in "The Drunkards," and possibly also in "The Barricade," which I do not know, I find a passion which can be compared to the white heat of iron."
JLB 310, 2/8/1883: " There's something pithy and 'considered' in him. He's amusing and yet full of emotion and passion. Sometimes, it seems to me I find a passion that might be likened to white-hot iron, in the drunkards, for instance, and probably in the Barricade too (which I don't know)."

218. behavior could be explained Typologies claimed to distinguish criminal from law-abiding, mad from sane, artist from clerk, and, of course, peasant from bourgeoisie. Artists like Daumier and the revered Millet explored each type down to the finest nuances of body, posture, clothing, turn of the mouth, point of the chin, and look in the eye. 219. "I am in the habit" BVG R05, 11/21/1881.

Context:
BVG R05, 11/21/1881: "You should know that I am in the habit of observing very accurately the physical exteriors of people in order to get at their real mental make-up."
JLB 188, 11/21/1881: "I should tell you that I'm used to paying very close attention to the outward appearance of people if I want to work out how they actually think."

220. Jews sold books BVG 241, 11/2/1882-11/3/1882.

Context:
JLB 280, 11/5/1882: "[Josef] Blok the Jewish bookseller, not David but the short one who's on the Binnenhof. I wish I had more from that family, for they are a true type."

221. or lent money BVG 498, 6/15/1888. In one of Vincent's less attractive reliances on stereotypes, he writes in criticism of Gauguin's plan to support artists: "I find this in particular rather strange in this plan of Gauguin's: the society offers its protection in exchange for 10 paintings that the artists will have to give, if ten artists do that, the Jewish company clearly pockets 100 paintings 'for a start.' The protection of this society that doesn't even exist costs a lot of money." (JLB 625, 6/15/1888-6/16/1888; emphasis in original.) Of course, Vincent is promoting his own competing plan at this time, and his apparent distrust of Gauguin, a former stockbroker, should be seen in that light. As for the reference to the "Jewish company," we do not believe Vincent was anti-Semitic in any personal or malicious way. He is operating, as he always does, according to the stereotypes that control his view of the world (some of which, like this one, were common in the era). Jews were bankers and booksellers. Period. 222. "Negroes" BVG 180, 3/11/1882.

Context:
BVG 180, 3/11/1882: "The thing to do is to work like a lot of Negroes: I would rather say nothing than express myself feebly."
JLB 210, 3/11/1882: "One must work like a bunch of negroes. I'd rather say nothing than express myself weakly." (Emphasis in original.)

223. any nonwhites BVG W05, 7/31/1888: Note that Vincent uses the term "negro" for any non-white person.

Context:
JLB 653, 7/31/1888: "A negro boy with a red and white cow, a negress in blue, and some green forest. He's someone who works like one possessed, and he does all sorts of things; he's in Brittany now."

224. "Yankees" BVG 479, 4/24/1888: Vincent's general attitude toward Americans is clear enough from this back-handed compliment of an American painter who visited him in Arles (see context).

Context:
BVG 479, 4/24/1888: "He is a Yankee, and probably paints much better than most Yankees do, but a Yankee all the same."
JLB 601, 4/25/1888: "He's a Yankee who probably does much better than the ordinary run of Yankees. But a Yankee all the same."

225. "Egyptians" BVG B07, 6/18/1888. Vincent seems to have applied the term Egyptian broadly to anyone from the Middle East or North Africa.

Context:
BVG B07, 6/18/1888: "After a few eccentric things, you have succeeded in doing some with Egyptian calm and a great simplicity."
JLB 628, 6/19/1888: "After some eccentric things you have succeeded in making some that have an Egyptian calm and a great simplicity" (emphasis in original).

226. southerners, temperamental BVG 604, 9/5/1889-9/6/1889. Earlier, in Arles, Vincent wrote: "The crowd almost (the southerner, ... being braver in good intentions than in action), the crowd, I'm telling you, almost lynched the murderers locked up in the town hall, but its revenge was that all the Italians, men and women, including the young chimney-sweeps, had to leave the town under duress" (JLB 585, 3/16/1888; emphasis in original) 227. northerners, phlegmatic BVG 604, 9/5/1889-9/6/1889.

Context:
JLB 800, 9/5/1889-9/6/1889: "So take things with a certain northern phlegm and take care of yourselves, both of you."

228. "unpolished" BVG 295, 6/22/1883.

Context:
BVG 295, 6/22/1883: "For the studies which I have already finished, I had a young farm hand, a real type, with something broad and rough and non ébarbé [unpolished] about him."
JLB 356, 6/22/1883: "For the studies I already have I had a young farm labourer, a really typical figure with something broad and rough and unpolished about him" (emphasis in original).

229. "broad and rough" BVG 295, 6/22/1883.

Context:
BVG 295, 6/22/1883: "For the studies which I have already finished, I had a young farm hand, a real type, with something broad and rough and non ébarbé [unpolished] about him."
JLB 356, 6/22/1883: "For the studies I already have I had a young farm labourer, a really typical figure with something broad and rough and unpolished about him" (emphasis in original).

230. gospels of physiognomy BVG 138, 11/1/1880.

Context:
JLB 160, 11/1/1880: "I had great pleasure lately in reading an extract from the work by Lavater and Gall. Physiognomie et phrénologie. Namely character as it is expressed in facial characteristics and the shape of the skull."

231. the " tournure" BVG 299, 7/11/1883: Vincent may have taken this term from a book by Charles Blanc (1813-1882; French critic), Les artistes de mon temps (Artists of My Era), which was published in 1876. In his discussion of Gavarni, Blanc writes: "il n'a pas besoin de savoir modeler un torse, articuler une rotule, attacher un muscle. Il lui suffit de posséder ce qu'il possède dans la perfection, le sentiment des tournures, l'intelligence de l'habit, la connaissance profonde du masque, et par dessus tout, le génie du geste." (The artist doesn't have to know how to model a torso, or articulate a roule, or attach a muscle. It is sufficient that he possesses to perfection the sentiment of bearings, the intelligence of clothing, the understanding of the mask, and above all the genius of gesture. [Blanc, p. 337; emphasis added.]) Childs appears to add an additional element to this analysis when she writes: "Van Gogh valued Daumier's use of physiognomy, gesture, and facial expression to convey human emotion" (Homburg, quoting Childs, p. 137). But the last part of that statement is surely wrong, for Vincent writes, "I find few things as horrible as most academic facial expressions" (JLB 361, 7/11/1883). We believe part of Vincent's rejection of facial expressions was surely his lack of skill at rendering them.

Context:
BVG 299, 7/11/1883: "Speaking of expression in a figure, I am increasingly coming round to the idea that it lies less in the features than in the whole tournure [bearing]."
JLB 361, 7/11/1883: "Speaking of expression in a figure, I'm becoming more and more persuaded that it lies not so much in the features as in the whole manner."

232. "I see" BVG 276, 3/21/1883-3/28/1883. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 276, 3/21/1883-3/28/1883: "Every day here in The Hague I see, so to speak, a world which many people pass by, and which is quite different from what most of the painters make."
JLB 330, 3/18/1883: "Here in The Hague every day, so to speak, I see a world which a great many pass by and which is very different from what most are making."

233. "The Poor and Money" BVG 235, 10/1/1882.

Context:
BVG 235, 10/1/1882: "It seems to me that it takes on more significance when one views it as: the poor and money."
JLB 270, 10/1/1882: "It becomes more meaningful, I believe, if one thinks of it as THE POOR AND MONEY."

234. "All nature is an indescribably" BVG 276, 3/21/1883-3/28/1883: We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 276, 3/21/1883-3/28/1883: "Still, the whole of nature is an indescribably beautiful Black and White exhibition during such snow effects."
JLB 330, 3/18/1883: "In short, the whole of nature is an inexpressibly beautiful Black and White exhibition when there are those snow effects."

289 235. "sorrowful yet always rejoicing" BVG 74, 8/26/1876.

Context:
BVG 74, 8/26/1876: "He is already tired and asks a woman in black, who is standing on the path and whose name is 'Sorrowful yet always rejoicing.'"
JLB 89, 8/26/1876: "… he is already tired and asks a woman in black standing by the roadside whose name is 'sorrowful, yet always rejoicing …'"

236. " aimer encore" BVG 155, 11/9/1881-11/10/1881.

Context:
BVG 155, 11/9/1881-11/10/1881: "Now, I have been complaining a little about Father and Mother, but except that they do not understand the least bit of it and do not understand anything of the 'aimer encore' and could only call it "untimely and indelicate" until I put a stop to that -- after all, they are very good to me and kinder than ever."
JLB 181, 11/8/1881-11/9/1881: "Well, I've grumbled a bit about Pa and Ma, but except that they really don't have the remotest idea of how matters stand, and understand nothing of the 'love on,' and could think of nothing else to say than untimely and indelicate until I stopped them, they are very good to me, and kinder than ever."

237. to simple formulae BVG 235, 10/1/1882. 238. world into categories Judged by his own artistic standards, Vincent was steadfastly conventional, citing "rules or principles or basic values for both drawing and colour -- which one -- proves to arrive at -- when one finds something true. As regards drawing -- for instance, that question of drawing figures from the circle -- that is, based on the fundamental oval planes, which the ancient Greeks already felt and which will continue to be until the end of the *world." (JLB 495, 4/21/1885; emphasis in original.) 239. characters in a book BVG 279, 4/11/1883.

Context:
JLB 336, 4/11/1883: "Have got round to reading the last part of Les misérables -- the figure of Fantine -- a prostitute -- made a deep impression on me -- oh, I know as well as anyone that in reality one won't find an exact Fantine -- but all the same this character by Hugo -- like all his characters for that matter -- is true, being the essence of what one sees in reality. It is the type -- of which one encounters only individuals."

240. outlines of their type BVG 237, 10/22/1882.

Context:
JLB 274, 10/22/1882: "But I remember that it struck me so forcefully that there was something so firm and manly in Daumier's approach that I thought: it must be good to feel and think like that and overlook or ignore a mass of things so as to concentrate on something that's thought-provoking and appeals to a human being as a human being more directly than meadows or clouds."

241. "I see things" BVG 195, 5/1/1882.

Context:
BVG 195, 5/1/1882: "Here they all criticize the technique [of my drawings], but they all say the same hackneyed things about the English drawings, for instance. Only Weissenbruch -- when I told him, I see things as pen drawings -- said, 'Then you must draw with the pen.'"
JLB 222, 5/1/1882: "Here everyone criticizes the technique [of my drawings], but I also hear the same platitudes from everyone about English drawings, for example. Weissenbruch alone said, when I told him that I see the things as pen drawings -- then you must draw with the pen." (Emphasis in original.)

242. a physical description BVG 235, 10/1/1882. This is the only detail Vincent ever gives about the "orphan man," Adrianus Jacobus Zuyderland, whom he drew probably hundreds of times.

Context:
JLB 270, 10/1/1882: "I believe you might perhaps enjoy this collection of orphan men in their Sunday and working clothes. Then I also tackled him sitting with a pipe. He has an interesting bald head -- big ears and white sideboards."

243. never commented on BVG 178, 3/3/1882. Typical is this announcement: "On Sunday I am having a boy from the orphanage, a real type, but unfortunately I can only get him for a short time" (JLB 207, 3/3/1882). 244. "One little fellow" BVG 291, 6/5/1883 or 6/6/1883. Vincent saw this man in the men's ward of the "old men's … home" and drew him there (JLB 351, 6/7/1883).

Context:
JLB 351, 6/7/1883: "A small chap with a long, thin neck in a chair on rollers, among others, was priceless."

245. "One could not expect" BVG 288, 6/3/1883.

Context:
BVG 288, 6/3/1883: "Suppose somebody like old Mr. [Adolphe] Goupil should raise monetary objections -- from his point of view as a rich merchant, one could not expect anything else."
JLB 348, 6/3/1883: "Suppose someone like old Mr. Goupil had an objection concerning money -- one expects no less from his standpoint, that of a rich dealer."

246. "ought to be humble" BVG 288, 6/3/1883.

Context:
BVG 288, 6/3/1883: "But coming from Father and Mother, who ought to be humble and contented with simple things, I think their speaking that way very wicked, and I feel something like shame at their behaviour."
JLB 348, 6/3/1883: "But with Pa and Ma, who are supposed to be humble and content with simplicity, I think it very nasty of them to speak like that, and I'm ashamed, as it were, that they're like that."

247. help each other BVG 290, 6/3/1883.

Context:
JLB 349, 6/3/1883: "The poor can be the poor one's friend."

248. "learn thrift" BVG 290, 6/3/1883.

Context:
BVG 290, 6/3/1883: "But here also it sometimes happens that the poor are the poor man's friend, and certainly it is a good thing that women and children learn thrift and that men learn to work hard."
JLB 349, 6/3/1883: "Yet here too it's sometimes so that the poor can be the poor one's friend, and it certainly has a very good side in that both woman and children learn to be thrifty and the man learns to work hard" (emphasis in original).

249. Bourgeois women BVG 290, 6/3/1883.

Context:
JLB 349, 6/3/1883: "Yet because your woman is likely to prove to have an intellectual side and isn't uncultured, I believe that for that reason she deserves to be doubly trusted."

250. "work on" BVG 301, 7/22/1883. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 301, 7/22/1883: "I do not approve, Theo, of spending more than one receives, but when it is a question of going on strike or working on, I vote for working on to the utmost."
JLB 363, 7/22/1883: "I don't think it right, Theo, to spend more than one receives -- but if it's a question of stopping or carrying on working, I'm for carrying on to the end."

251. characters in a novel BVG 247, 11/24/1882. Discussing the character of Octave Mouret in Zola's Pot-Bouille (Pot Luck) (1883), Vincent sounds as if he is talking about a real person, using similar language to that he often uses in his own defense: "you won't find [Mouret] satisfactory any more than I do, and I sense an emptiness in him. Could he have done differently? Perhaps he couldn't, but you and I can and must in my view. After all, we have our roots in a family life of a different kind from Mouret's." (JLB 286, 11/24/1882.)

Context:
JLB 286, 11/24/1882: "Octave Mouret -- actually the main character -- couldn't he be regarded as typical of the kind of people you wrote about recently, if you remember? He's far better than most people, in many respects, but you won't find him satisfactory any more than I do, and I sense an emptiness in him."

252. "it was impossible" BVG 329, 9/28/1883. Vincent sounds this theme throughout the Hague period, primarily in defense of his own actions: "So the woman [Sien] in particular is as innocent of my deficit as I am myself, in so far as it could be no different in The Hague" (JLB 391, 9/28/1883). "Last year I knew of only one home for her, namely with me, and if I could have done something else I wouldn't have taken her into my house immediately" (JLB 301, 1/13/1883). Elsewhere, he uses it more generally to defend his actions: "When I say I'm a poor painter and still face years of struggle ... that's a fixed point from which many things follow, which are thus taken out of their context if they're viewed other than in general. There are painters in other circumstances who can and must act differently." (JLB 374, 8/17/1883.)

Context:
BVG 329, 9/27/1883: "Indeed, the woman is quite innocent of my deficit, and so am I, since it was impossible to act differently in The Hague -- but if I had known it, I would have moved here much sooner."
JLB 391, 9/28/1883: "So the woman in particular is as innocent of my deficit as I am myself, in so far as it could be no different in The Hague -- but if I had known I would have moved here much sooner."

253. "as a painter" BVG 256, 12/31/1882-1/2/1883.

Context:
JLB 297, 12/31/1882 and 1/2/1883: "As a painter, one must leave aside other social ambitions ..." (emphasis in original).

254. "temporary fits" BVG R34, 5/8/1883.

Context:
BVG R34, 5/8/1883: " Temporary fits of weakness, nervousness, melancholy are often caused by the exertion of working; but at the same time there is something like a rebound, so that weakness, etc., may be overcome again by exertion."
JLB 341, 4/9/1883: " Momentary weakness, nervousness, melancholy are often caused by the effort of working -- at the same time, though, there's a kind of rebound, and the weakness &c. &c. is cured precisely by making an effort."

255. "something peculiar" BVG R34, 5/8/1883.

Context:
BVG R34, 5/8/1883: "In a certain sense there is something peculiar in the constitution of every painter."
JLB 341, 4/9/1883: "On the contrary indeed, there's something peculiar in the temperament of every painter."

256. "it fits in with" BVG 290, 6/3/1883.

Context:
BVG 290, 6/3/1883: "And in my case, just because it fits in with my profession, many difficulties disappear, though from another side, the financial one, many difficulties do indeed arise, and will remain."
JLB 349, 6/3/1883: "And as for me, precisely because it can fit in with my work, many problems disappear on the one hand, although on the other, namely the financial side, there certainly are many difficulties, and these will remain."

257. "I am a poor painter" BVG 313, 8/18/1883.

Context:
BVG 313, 8/18/1883: "When I say I am a poor painter and have still years of struggle ahead -- my everyday life I must arrange ' 258. "ugly face" BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882.

Context:
BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882: "Then my ugly face and shabby coat harmonize perfectly with the surroundings and I am myself and work with pleasure."
JLB 220, 4/23/1882: "Then my ugly face and my weather-stained jacket are perfectly in keeping with my surroundings, and I'm myself and work with pleasure."

259. loving Kee Vos BVG 159, 11/18/1881.

Context:
JLB 186, 11/18/1881: " You will understand what I tell you, that to work and be an artist one needs love" (emphasis in original).

260. "I do not" BVG 381, 10/1/1884.

Context:
JLB 465, 10/9/1884: "I have absolutely no intention of becoming less passionate in ideas or in life than I am."

261. "I am myself" BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882.

Context:
BVG 190, 4/15/1882-4/27/1882: "Then my ugly face and shabby coat harmonize perfectly with the surroundings and I am myself and work with pleasure."
JLB 220, 4/23/1882: "Then my ugly face and my weather-stained jacket are perfectly in keeping with my surroundings, and I'm myself and work with pleasure."

290 262. by God for love BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882.

Context:
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "What a woman wants is to be with one man and to stay with him for good. That's not always possible, but if it is otherwise it goes against nature."

263. "she loses her spirits" BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882.

Context:
BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "A woman changes when she loves and is loved; when nobody cares for her, she loses her spirits and the charm is gone."
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "A woman changes when she loves and is loved; if there's no one who cares for them the drive and charm goes."

264. lonely, unloved women BVG 96, 5/21/1877-5/22/1877. The best example is the "foot-stove woman" that Vincent saw in an Amsterdam church in 1877: "I saw a little old woman, probably the foot-stove woman ... Charles Blanc writes about it so beautifully and with so much feeling, and I think Michelet does as well in his: there is no such thing as an old woman. The poem by De Genestet, 'Haar pad in 't leven loopt eenzaam af' also reminds me of it." (JLB 115, 5/21/1877-5/22/1877.) 265. "Even as a boy" BVG 164, 12/21/1881.

Context:
JLB 193, 12/23/1881: "Even as a boy I sometimes looked up with endless sympathy and respect into a half-withered female face on which it was written, as it were: life and reality have given me a drubbing."

266. he spun vivid images The best examples are his description of Kee Vos with her young son (JLB 131, 9/18/1877), and of Jeremie Posthumus Meijes's wife at her sewing machine (JLB 135, 11/24/1877-11/25/1877). In his Richmond sermon, Vincent declared: "there is only one who remembereth no more her sorrow and her anguish for joy that man is born into the world. She is our Mother." (Van Gogh, p. 87.) (Also see JLB 184, 11/12/1881.) Vincent's images of motherhood, like the one in his sermon, often focused on the "terrible suffering" of birth and the sacrifice it represented (JLB 239, 6/22/1882). But childbearing was the duty of womanhood, just as love was its fulfillment. "A woman without a child," he warned his sister Wil, "is a bell without a clapper -- the sound of the bronze would perhaps be very beautiful -- but -- ..." (JLB 804, 9/19/1889). Elsewhere, he was far harsher, quoting favorably a sentiment that he attributes to Gavarni: "There is an insupportable, silly and ill-natured creature -- that is the young girl; there is a sublime and devoted creature -- that is that girl when she has become a mother" (JLB 309, 2/8/1883). 267. chose prostitution BVG R4, 11/12/1881.

Context:
JLB 184, 11/12/1881: "Now in my opinion there are two kinds of mistress. One is the kind with whom one can give and take love, one or both of you being aware, meanwhile, that it isn't forever, neither does one surrender to it whole-heartedly and unreservedly."

268. easily deceived BVG R21, 2/7/1883.

Context:
JLB 309, 2/8/1883: "My dear friend, at present I recall no less than 4 women here in town (including my own) who have fallen or been deceived and have illegitimate children, and their fate is so sad that it's difficult to imagine" (emphasis in original).

269. "in great" BVG 279, 4/11/1883.

Context:
BVG 279, 4/11/1883: "It is my opinion that no matter how good and noble a woman may be by nature, if she has no means and is not protected by her own family, in the present society she is in great, immediate danger of being drowned in the pool of prostitution."
JLB 336, 4/11/1883: "A woman, however good and noble she may be by nature, in my view stands in great and immediate danger in today's society of sinking into the maelstrom of prostitution if she has no means and isn't protected by her own family."

270. lost forever BVG R21, 2/7/1883.

Context:
JLB 309, 2/8/1883: "My dear friend, at present I recall no less than 4 women here in town (including my own) who have fallen or been deceived and have illegitimate children, and their fate is so sad that it's difficult to imagine. Especially because for 3 of them, at least, the chance of pulling through is almost non-existent -- i.e. it's there in theory but not in practice, in my view." (Emphasis in original.)

271. "My poor" BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882.

Context:
BVG 201, 6/2/1882: "I ask but one single thing [of Pa]: to let me love and care for my poor, weak, ill-used little wife as well as my poverty permits, without their trying to separate, worry or hurt us."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "I ask for nothing [of Pa] ... only one single thing -- that I be allowed to cherish and care for my poor, weak, tormented little wife as well as my poverty permits, without steps being taken to separate or hinder us or cause us sorrow" (emphasis in original).

272. "an unhappy" BVG 219, 7/23/1882.

Context:
BVG 219, 7/23/1882: "Preferably, I don't know why, an unhappy, forsaken or lonely creature."
JLB 250, 7/23/1882: "Preferably an unfortunate or spurned or abandoned creature, I don't know why."

273. "monstrous" BVG 288, 6/3/1883.

Context:
BVG 288, 6/3/1883: "Thwarting the interests of such a woman, preventing her rescue, is monstrous."
JLB 348, 6/3/1883: "And to stand in the way of such a woman, to obstruct her rescue and salvation, is monstrous."

274. "She has" BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882.

Context:
BVG 204, 6/3/1882: "There is nothing special about her, she is just an ordinary woman of the people who has something of the sublime for me."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "There's nothing special about her; she's just an ordinary woman of the people who for me has something sublime."

275. drawing after drawing b3025 V/1982, "Kam, J.B." to "Plasschaert, A.", 6/12/1912: In addition to the many surviving drawings for which Sien probably posed, we have the first-hand testimony of a visitor to the studio, Jan Benjamin Kam, the son of the neighboring pastor in Etten-Leur, with whom Vincent did some sketching during the summer of 1881. In his letter to Plasschaert in 1912, Kam recalled his visit to the Schenkweg studio: "I found him there in a room with buckets full of dirty water in which he would continuously sponge off his studies. His model was a skinny poor woman, whom he would draw over and over again." (Emphasis added.) This is clearly a reference to Sien Hoornik and it must date from relatively early in 1882, both because Sien was "skinny," and because Kam also mentions that Vincent was "very happy over the fact that Goupil exhibited a few townscapes of The Hague, which he had drawn" (ibid.). The latter part of this recollection is wrong, of course: Goupil did not exhibit Vincent's drawings, but that is an understandable confusion with the commission from Vincent's Uncle Cor, also a dealer. The arrangement for this sale was made in early March 1882 (JLB 211, 3/11/1882). Kam must have visited close to this time, as Vincent did not remain "very happy" about the arrangement for long. 276. as a young widow Bent Figure of a Woman (Sien?), F 935 JH 143, early May, 1882, pencil, pen, brush, sepia, 22.8 x 16.5 in., 58 x 42 cm., Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum. 277. as a matron sewing Figure of a Woman with Unfinished Chair, F 932 JH 145, early May, 1882, pencil, black chalk, washed, 22.8 x 17.9 in., 58 x 45.5 cm., Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum. 278. as a mother

Sien's sister, Maria Wilhelmina, was nine at the time she met Vincent. Sien's daughter, also Maria Wilhelmina, was four at the time. She turned five on May 7, 1872. In Vincent's drawings of Sien with a young female child, it is sometimes difficult to be sure which of the two Maria's posed. The child depicted often looks too small for a nine-year-old and too big for a four- or five-year-old. Identification is further complicated by the fact that Sien was herself probably small and Vincent was never reliably precise about relative sizes of figures. We believe the following drawings probably show Sien with her sister: Backyards (F 939a JH 102), Sien, Sitting on a Basket, with a Girl (F 1072 JH 341), and Woman with a Child on Her Lap (F 1067 JH 356). She is probably shown with her daughter in Sien with Child on her Lap (F 1071 JH 104). In the coming year and a half, Vincent would depict Sien often with the baby born in July, Willem (Sien Nursing Baby, Half-Figure [F 1062 JH 216] through Sien Nursing Baby [F 1064 JH 221], Orphan Man with a Baby in his Arms [F 981 JH 317], and Woman with Baby on her Lap, Half-Length [F 1066 JH 322]).

279. domesticity: sweeping

Woman with a Broom, F 1075 JH 224, late September, 1882, pencil, watercolor, 17.9 x 9 in., 45.5 x 23 cm., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum and Woman with a Broom, F 1074 JH 249, 1882, pencil, pen, heightened with watercolor, 19.5 x 10.8 in., 49.5 x 27.5 cm, Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum.

280. saying grace Woman Praying, F 1053 JH 357, April, 1883, black chalk, pencil, brush, washed, 24.8 x 15.6 in., 63 x 39.5 cm., Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum. 281. carrying a kettle Woman with Kettle, Seen from the Back, F 1051 JH 215, September, 1882, pencil, 18 x 9 in., 46 x 23 cm., Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum. 282. going to church Sien with Umbrella and Prayer Book, F 1052 JH 101, February, 1882, pencil, black chalk, 17.7 x 8.7 in., 45.5 x 22 cm., Japan, private collection. 283. orphans as shoeblacks BVG 180, 3/11/1882.

Context:
JLB 210, 3/11/1882: "Since Theo's visit I've made a drawing of an orphan boy polishing shoes."

284. pensioners as fisherman

Head of a Fisherman with a Fringe of Beard and a Sou'wester (F 1017 JH 302) and Fisherman with Sou'wester, Pipe and Coal-pan (F 1016 JH 304) through Head of a Fisherman with a Sou'wester (F 1014 JH 310). The extent to which Vincent brought his own, powerful stereotyping vision to the reality of these sitters can be seen in the difference between these drawings of the almshouse man as a fisherman and the extraordinary sketch of him as a granite-jawed squire out of Dickens in Orphan Man, Bareheaded, Head (F 955 JH 355).

291 285. real world at bay Despite his claims for the immutability of "type," Vincent was strangely pragmatic when it came to his own drawings of types. "I've done a large drawing ... of a digger -- I took as my model the orphan man you're familiar with -- a bald head bent forward over the black earth -- it seemed to me to have a certain significance, making one think of 'in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,' for instance" (JLB 333, 3/29/1883 and 4/1/1883). It is clear from this passage that Vincent is not just using these models for lighting or general posture. He layers onto the model not just the clothes of the "type" for which he is posing, but the more specific and much deeper "sentiment" which is, for Vincent, the essence of the type. He can do this without any regard to the individuality of the actual model, who remains unchanged through multiple types. In another instance, he describes his model as "a boy with a spade, a builder's labourer by trade. A very genuine type, flat nose, thick lips, very straight, coarse hair." (JLB 272, 10/15/1882.) Yet he immediately wants to pose him as a different type altogether: "I then want to draw him the way they are when they pull the barges with bricks, which is a common sight on the canal here" (ibid.).

If Vincent's types had any objective reality, surely the same person could not evoke the essence of so many different types. Partly this can be explained by Vincent's belief in the talismanic power of the "attributes" of type. A good example is the sou'wester hat worn by Dutch fishermen. "Tomorrow I'll be getting a sou'wester for the heads. Heads of fishermen, old and young, that's what I've been thinking about for a long time and I had already done one, but then later I couldn't get hold of a sou'wester again. Now I'm going to have one of my own, an old one that many gales and seas have swept over." (JLB 301, 1/13/1883.) All of this suggests how intense Vincent's powers of visualization were.

286. by turns, an almshouse BVG 269, 2/25/1883-2/26/1883. In an explanation accompanying a drawing of his window treatment (upper and lower pairs of solid shutters), Vincent writes: "Window 1 now (in the scratch) has its lower part closed off, and the rest too in part. Now looks like the door of a room in an almshouse, say." (JLB 319, 2/23/1883.) 287. a peasant's hovel Prayer Before the Meal, F 1002 JH 281, c. 12-18 December, 1882, pencil, black chalk, ink, heightened with white, 23.6 x 19.7 in., 60 x 50 cm., Private collection. 288. a fisherman's hut

Fisherman with Sou'wester, Sitting with Pipe, F 1010 JH 306, February, 1883, pen, pencil, black chalk, washed, 18.1 x 10.2 in., 46 x 26 cm., Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum. (The sketchier Fisherman with Sou'wester, Sitting with Pipe [F 1013 JH 305] was obviously done at the same time, but Vincent does not make the same effort to create a specific sense of place.)

289. a village inn Man in a Village Inn, F 276 JH 339, March, 1883, sketch sent with letter, size unknown, Van Gogh Museum. 290. a soup kitchen

The Public Soup Kitchen (F 271 JH 328), Soup Distribution in a Public Soup Kitchen (F 1020a JH 330), The Public Soup Kitchen (F 1020b JH 331) through The Public Soup Kitchen (F 1020 JH 333).

291. the light flooding BVG 269, 2/25/1883-2/26/1883. In his second studio on the Schenkweg, Vincent complains of "the light coming in" and "an enormous reflection in the past that neutralized all effects" (JLB 319, 2/23/1883). "I was often desperate," he says. "This was most regrettable, and the surface area of those 3 windows was so large that it couldn't be dimmed sufficiently with screens or cardboard" (ibid.). 292. shutters and muslin shades BVG 213, 7/6/1882. Referring to his second studio off the Schenkweg, Vincent writes: "The studio looks so authentic, it seems to me: plain, grey-brown wallpaper, scrubbed floorboards, muslin fixed to laths in front of the windows, everything bright" (JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882). 293. re-create the mysterious BVG 269, 2/25/1883-2/26/1883.

Context:
JLB 319, 2/23/1883: "I saw a little old lady pottering about in a small room and there was a character and something mysterious in the figure that vanished completely when I had that same old lady in the studio."

294. warm, tempered BVG 268, 2/20/1883-2/24/1883.

Context:
JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883: "In those days everyone seems to have had a sort of need for a curious, dimmed light that no longer seems to exist, at least there's a tendency to make it cold, harsh and loveless."

295. played a special role Almost all of Vincent's siblings appear to have shared his fixation on windows. This would suggest a common source, probably their mother. Anna Carbentus's letters suggest at least a special sensitivity to views from windows. In Etten, when the building next to the parsonage was demolished, she reported happily: "Nowadays we have a great view because the house of Maas is totally torn down. They sold the rubble, so now we have a beautiful view." (b2547 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 8/1/1877.) When Vincent took his sister Anna to London in 1874, their mother worried over Vincent's report about the windows of the house where they moved after leaving the Loyers (Sarah and Eugenie): "Vincent spoke of a house with stained-glass windows and panes. I hope that it is not too dark behind those windows. Let's hope so." (b2720 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/4/1874.) When she fell and broke her hip in 1884, Vincent's mother had the furniture in the front room of the Nuenen parsonage rearranged "in such a way that she can see the street through the window," according to her husband (b2251 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 2/1/1884).

Vincent's sister Anna also seems to have found special significance in window views. "You write that your room is very beautiful," she wrote Theo from Welwyn, "I believe that ours tops them all. It's so light and cheery and friendly and the window is very pretty, grown with ivy." (b2371 V/1982, "Gogh, Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 11/7/1875.) The next year she rhapsodized about the view out her window in a way that sounds very much like Vincent: "I am sitting here writing in front of my open window and have a magnificent view of the setting sun and large cedar tree, which is from before the poet Young's time" (b2783 V/1982, ''Gogh, Anna van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 10/4/1876). (The reference is probably to the English Augustan poet Edward Young, best known for the long poem Night Thoughts, which was illustrated by William Blake in 1797.)

Vincent's sister Lies also shows a proclivity for gazing longingly out windows: "Last time, you wrote about that beautiful evening in Helvoirt. I thought of it, when I was looking out of the window last night." (b2557 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 9/23/1877.) When she and Wil were together in 1879, Lies wrote, also sounding like Vincent: "Wil and I are sitting in front of the open window, looking towards the beautiful lime-trees with the fresh new green" (b2474 V/1982, "Gogh, Elisabeth van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/21/1879). Sister Wil is the only other Van Gogh sibling known to have done a drawing of a view from a window: "Our Wil made such nice drawings on the slate; the view from her little room of the church tower, the church doors and church window, underneath the trees" (b2758 V/1982, "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/6/1876). And when Wil and her sister Anna united in 1876, they too spent time gazing out the window and thinking nostalgic thoughts: "We see the sun rise from our living room window over the graveyard. How nice it would be to see each other again." (b2740 V/1982, "Gogh, Willemina en Anna van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 1/30/1876.)

Although most of the evidence is indirect, it appears that Theo shared this preoccupation with his siblings. When he went to Paris for the first time in 1878, he wrote his parents a description of the exciting view from his fifth-floor window, as is clear from his father's response: "You did very well to write to us … We can now visualize things, almost at any time of day. While you stick your head out of the window for the first time in the morning and see the industrious tailor work." (b0979 V/1962, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 5/17/1878.) Dorus returned to the subject in a subsequent letter: "I can see you there standing on your chair in the morning to take in the view from your window. You are up high there, on the 5th floor." (b0983 V/1962, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/24/1878.) In 1883, a comment from Vincent suggests that Theo had sent vivid, Zola-like descriptions of the view from his Paris apartment: "You've so often shown me a glimpse of Paris through your descriptions" (JLB 330, 3/18/1883). In 1885, Theo wrote his mother in Nuenen about the imminent demolition of an old church tower that was visible from the parsonage window, also sounding like his brother: "What a pity that the tower will be torn down. It will be strange if one cannot see it anymore from the window. Luckily the view on the garden and the fields is beautiful, but it belonged in the beautiful view." (b0901 V/1962, "Gogh, Theo van" to "Gogh-Carbentus, Anna C. van", 5/19/1885.)

296. at the parsonage windowAn interesting childhood precedent for Vincent's lonely, voyeuristic relationship to windows is this passage from his childhood favorite, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr's A Tour Round my Garden: "Truly, said I to myself, this must be a singular restlessness of spirit, this love of travelling -- and travellers are strange beings to go to great distances, and at great expense, to see new things, without having taken the trouble to look at their feet or over their heads, where as many extraordinary and unknown things are passing as they can possibly desire to know. There he is, gone, continued I, still thinking of you; and he may make the tour of the whole world without meeting with so strange a love affair as I have just been a witness of from my window." (Karr, p. 8.)

Another example that was surely known to Vincent by this time, and perhaps as early as adolescence, was Émile Souvestre's Un philosophe sous les toits; journal d'un homme heureux (An Attic Philosopher [or APeep at the World from a Garret], Being the Journal of a Happy Man) (1853). In a chapter entitled "What we may learn by looking out a window," Souvestre (a favorite of Vincent's as recently as 1874, when Vincent transcribed excerpts from his works into the albums he made for Theo [see Ch. 6, n. 383]), writes: "I open my window, and the prospect of roofs opens out before me in all its splendor" (Souvestre, p. 32). Souvestre calls rooftops "these Alps of civilization" and praises the view from the upper stories of a building: "How many times have my days of leisure passed away in contemplating this wonderful sight; in discovering its darker or brighter episodes; in seeking, in short, in this unknown world for the impressions of travel that wealthy tourists look for lower down!" (ibid.).

297. lovingly recorded the view In Montmartre in 1875: "[My room] overlooks a little garden full of ivy and Virginia creeper." (JLB 37, 7/6/1875). In Ramsgate in 1876: "I arrived here safe and sound yesterday afternoon at 1 o'clock, and one of my first impressions was that the window of the not-very-large school looks out over the sea" (JLB 77, 4/17/1876). "How much I'd like you to be able to look through the school window" (JLB 78, 4/24/1876). "That same night I looked out of the window of my room onto the roofs of the houses one sees from there and the tops of the elms, dark against the night sky" (JLB 83, 5/31/1876). "The sea is beautiful all the same; there were lots of bedbugs at Mr. [William Port] Stokes's, but that view from the school window made one forget them." (JLB 87, 8/2/1876). In Isleworth in 1876: "It's a magnificent morning, the sun is shining through the large acacias on the playground, flashing on the roofs and windows visible behind the garden" (JLB 89, 8/26/1876).

In Dordrecht in 1877: "The window of my room looks out over gardens with pine trees and poplars etc. and the back of old houses, including a large one covered with ivy, ... There can be something so serious and rather sombre in that view, and you should see it with the morning sun on it" (JLB 101, 1/21/1877). Later the same year, at his uncle's house in the naval dockyard in Amsterdam: "Am quite often up rather early in the morning, and when the sun rises over the yard and the workers come a while later it's a wonderful sight from the window," (JLB 123, 7/27/1877), and "the view of the yard from the window beside me is indescribably beautiful, with that avenue of poplars whose slender forms and thin branches stand out so delicately against the grey evening sky" (JLB 136, 12/3/1877-12/4/1877). In Etten in 1878, Vincent describes his temporary new home at the parsonage: "[It is] the classroom that looks out on the garden and against which the ivy grows" (JLB 145, 7/22/1878).

298. as in Brixton b2710 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus en Anna C. van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 7/10/1874: When Vincent visited Helvoirt (from London) in the summer of 1874, he made a number of drawings including a large one of "those houses in London that they [the Loyers] see from their window." These drawings prompted Anna to say famously about Vincent's drawing, "it is a delightful gift that can be of good use to him" (ibid.). 299. Ramsgate BVG 67, 5/31/1876.

Context:
JLB 83, 5/31/1876: "Herewith a little drawing of the view from the school window where the boys stand and watch their parents going back to the station after a visit. Many a boy will never forget the view from that window."

300. filled with longing BVG 81, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: At a time of excruciating homesickness, in Ramsgate in 1876, Vincent described the nighttime view from his window (see context). A few months later, Vincent sat in a sexton's house in Acton Green looking out the window. Vincent also visualized distant loved ones by reference to the scenes outside their windows. In 1876, he was deeply impressed by the view from his sister Anna's room in Welwyn: "Her little room is so lovely with the ivy about the window and the view of the garden and the big chestnuts around which swarms of swallows fly in summer when the sun is setting behind the trees" (JLB 89, 8/26/1876). When his mother went to Theo's bedside in The Hague in the fall of 1876, Vincent pictured the scene because he had stayed in the very same room during his years in The Hague: "Dearest Mother and Theo, ... The view from the window in your room is no doubt beautiful now, I know it from days past, you know" (JLB 94, 10/13/1876).

Andersen's great series of stories, What the Moon Saw, with its repeated references to moonlight coming in windows, may be one of the primary sources for Vincent's fascination with windows -- as frames for experiencing the world outside, as peepholes into other lives, and as connections through time and space to distant loved ones:

           "Every evening came the moon and whispered in my ear,
           Telling of the quiet night and what its eye
           Had lit on from its watch-post in the sky.
           It who knows centuries -- through ages did it roam,
           Casting, high above the Flood and crest of foam,
           On the floating ark a soft silver glow,
           Just as it now lights my lonely window."
            (Hans Christian Andersen, quoted in JLB 121, 7/9/1877.)

Context:
JLB 98, 11/17/1876-11/18/1876: "In the afternoon Mr. [Slade-]Jones and his son and I went and had tea with the sexton, a shoemaker who lives in one of the suburbs. There was a view from the window there that reminded me very much of Holland -- a flat, grass-covered area, which the torrential rains had turned almost into a morass, surrounded by rows of little red houses with their gardens and the lights of the street-lamps that were being lit."

301. prints on his wall BVG 277, 3/30/1883-4/1/1883: Among the clearest examples is this one from 1883 in which Vincent self-consciously appropriates the language of landscape description so that the act of seeing is almost indistinguishable from the act of depicting (see context). The last line indicates that Theo continued to send Vincent detailed landscape descriptions (which he began doing long before Vincent became an artist, when the two brothers traded word paintings). Vincent tried to borrow credibility from Theo's talent at such descriptions to support his repeated pleas for Theo to quit dealing and become a landscape painter.

Context:
JLB 333, 3/29/1883 and 4/1/1883: "From the window I looked out on a broad, dark foreground -- dug-over gardens and soil, mostly warm black earth, very deep in tone. Running obliquely across that is the little road of yellowish sand with green edges of grass and the thin, spindly poplars. A background of a grey silhouette of the city with the round roof of the station and towers and chimneys. And, by the way, the backs of houses still everywhere -- but in the evening everything is brought together by the tone. And so, overseeing the whole, simply a foreground of black, dug-over earth, a road crossing that, a grey silhouette of a city with towers behind, just above that and almost on the horizon the red sun. It was just like a page in Hugo -- and something that would certainly have struck you and that you could describe better than I."

302. frequent, detailed accounts BVG 115, 12/4/1877.

Context:
JLB 136, 12/3/1877-12/4/1877: "It's already growing dark, and the view of the yard from the window beside me is indescribably beautiful, with that avenue of poplars whose slender forms and thin branches stand out so delicately against the grey evening sky, and then the old building with the arsenal in the water that is as still as 'the water of the old pool' that is spoken of in the book of Isaiah, the walls of that arsenal are completely green and weathered at the bottom at water level."

303. day and night An example of Vincent gazing out the window at night: "I always find it wonderfully cosy to sit by a fire in the dusk and to look through the window at a snow-covered landscape" (JLB 329, 3/16/1883). 304. the dockworkers BVG 97, 5/28/1877. Vincent described the movements of these workers often over the course of his stay with his uncle at the naval dockyard. A similar example of this voyeuristic tendency is implied in Vincent's description of students saying goodbye to their parents, which Vincent witnessed from the window of the Stokes school in Ramsgate: "Herewith a little drawing of the view from the school window where the boys stand and watch their parents going back to the station after a visit. Many a boy will never forget the view from that window." (JLB 83, 5/31/1876.)

Context:
JLB 116, 5/28/1877: "Right now all the people are leaving the dockyard to go home, that's nice to see. One hears them already early in the morning."

305. railroad coalyards BVG 293, 6/13/1883-6/14/1883.

Context:
JLB 353, 6/15/1883: "There are heaps of coal and fellows working in them, and people come with small wheelbarrows to buy a sack of coal; trade is very busy some days, and especially in the winter, with the snow it was a charming scene."

306. the window arrangementBVG 110, 9/18/1877: Two examples, the first of depicted windows, the second of real windows. After Vincent went to see the Rembrandt drawing Christ with Mary and Martha at the British Museum in 1875, he wrote: "In that room twilight dominates, the figure of the Lord, noble and impressive, stands out gravely against the window through which the evening twilight falls" (JLB 131, 9/18/1877). After going to the home of Christoffel Martinus Vos, a clergyman in Amsterdam, and his wife Kee Vos in Amsterdam in 1878, he wrote: "Went yesterday to see Vos who is but poorly, it's such a sad sight, seeing him sitting with his feet on a stove, for he's troubled by cold feet, staring out the window with his hollow eyes" (JLB 142, 3/3/1878). The depth of Vincent's interest in windows is revealed in this comment based on deep looking at Rembrandt's interiors: "Compare a modern window with one from Rembrandt's time. In those days everyone seems to have had a sort of need for a curious, dimmed light that no longer seems to exist." (JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883.) 307. complained relentlessly Of his first studio in Brussels, he wrote: "My bedroom is all too small and the light isn't good, and the people would object to my shutting out some of the light coming in through the window" (JLB 164, 4/2/1881). Of the first studio in The Hague in 1882, he wrote that the single window was "large (twice as large as an ordinary window), and it's more or less facing south" and that he spent some of the 100 guilders Anton Mauve lent him to "get the window and light fixed up" (JLB 196, 1/3/1882). His remodeling of the windows in the second Hague studio, which was even more extensive, will be discussed in the next chapter. 308. window treatments BVG 268, 2/20/1883-2/24/1883: When proposing remodeling his windows in the second Hague studio, Vincent laments that he can't include a window seat.

Context:
JLB 318, 2/20/1883 or 2/21/1883: "But the latter is an agreeable and easily achieved, pleasing window. But one can't have everything. And it ought really to have a broad window-sill -- where one could sit -- which is entirely lacking in this house."

309. from his window BVG 170, 1/12/1882-1/16/1882.

Context:
JLB 200, 1/14/1882: "This is a sketch of Schenkweg, the view from my window."

310. drew the scene

Carpenter's Yard and Laundry, F 939 JH 150, May, 1882, pencil, pen, brush, heightened with white, 11.2 x 18.5 in., 28.5 x 47 cm., Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum. Vincent made an almost identical copy of the drawing for Theo (Carpenter's Yard and Laundry [F 944 JH 153]).

311. "One can look" BVG 205, 6/3/1882.

Context:
BVG 205, 6/3/1882: As you see, there are already several planes in this drawing, and one can look around it and through it, in every nook and cranny.
JLB 235, 6/3/1882: 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.

312. laundresses and carpenters Van der Mast and Dumas, eds., p. 24: Van der Mast and Dumas provide possible identities for some of the figures depicted in Vincent's drawings. A widow, Simonis de Mol, Vincent's neighbor at 5 Schenkstraat, used the yard on the right as a laundry. The shed in back was her washhouse. The authors speculate that Vincent may have "depicted the widow and her helper Elisabeth Tuschenbroek, who lived with her, in the garden." The crew in the carpenter's yard worked for Pieter Willem de Zwart, the contractor who had built the row of small working-class houses depicted on the left of Vincent's drawing, which could be reached through a gate on the Schenkstraat. De Zwart was also the owner of Vincent's building and, thus, Vincent's landlord. (Jansen, Luijten, and Fieke Pabst, p. 37) Van der Mast and Dumas are too generous, we think, when they suggest that the distant wooden figures in Vincent's drawings were intended as depictions of specific individuals. 313. a trace of life Vincent himself often referred to the figures in his drawings (and out his window) with diminutives like "sheep" (JLB 264, 9/17/1882) or "terracottas" (JLB 260, 9/3/1882). 314. eavesdropping perspective This is not the same as the "birds-eye" perspective that was common in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. Van der Mast and Dumas point out that "we know many views from the seventeenth century that were made from a dune or hill, and sometimes also from a tower or a roof of a tall building" (Van der Mast and Dumas, p. 109). But, according to the authors, "views from a window are much rarer" (ibid.). They then go on to list the few precedents and catalogue Vincent's works from windows. We would only add that Vincent's "window" images include both elevated and ground-level perspective works, whereas Van der Mast and Dumas seem to include only the former.

The most important corpus of such work, of course, is the series of paintings he made from the barred window of his cell at the asylum in St. Remy in 1889-90. Vincent adopted the same perspective again in a drawing of a fish-drying barn in Scheveningen (Fish-Drying Barn, Seen From a Height [F 938 JH 152]). From a position high on an overlooking dune, he peered long and hard at some ramshackle houses and rickety drying sheds surrounded by a ragged barricade of baskets. Vincent did at least two other drawings in the same place, Fish-Drying Barn [F 946a JH 151] and Fish-Drying Barn [F 940 JH 154]. The former is a view from the same height but from a much greater distance; the latter is a ground level view from the opposite side (presumably, the beach side). Vincent was so proud of these two related images (Carpenter's Yard and Laundry [F 939 JH 150] and Fish-Drying Barn, Seen From a Height [F 938 JH 152]) that he sent versions of them to Theo (JLB 235, 6/3/1882). He also made a watercolor of the same scene as Fish-Drying Barn, Seen From a Height [F 938 JH 152] from a lower height on the overlooking dune (Fish-Drying Barn [F 945 JH 160]).

Another surviving drawing attributed to this period in which Vincent draws a scene of Scheveningen houses from atop a dune is View of Scheveningen [F 1041 JH 167]. The connection between Carpenter's Yard and Laundry (F 939 JH 150) and Fish-Drying Barn, Seen From a Height (F 938 JH 152) is not inferred, it is Vincent's own: "Today I made an early start because I wanted to do another one the same [the Carpenter's Yard and Laundry (F 939 JH 150) (JLB 235, 6/3/1882)], and went to the dunes to draw a fish-drying barn, also seen from a height like the carpenter's shed" (JLB 232, 5/28/1882).

315. and made sketches BVG 291, 6/5/1883-6/6/1883. Vincent describes this experience in the almshouse as "very real, inexpressibly real," but it is unclear to what aspect of the visit this accolade belongs (JLB 351, 6/7/1883).

Context:
JLB 351, 6/7/1883: "I was there [at the almshouse] today. From the window I sketched an old gardener by a crooked apple tree, and the workshop of the home's carpenter, where I drank tea with two orphan men."

316. "I wish one could have" BVG 229, 9/9/1882.

Context:
JLB 261, 9/9/1882: "One ought to be allowed to enter any of the houses and sit down at the windows without further ado."

317. same scene again Rooftops, F 943 JH 156, 21 July 1882, watercolor, heightened with white, 15.4 x 21.7 in., 39 x 55 cm., Private collection and Rooftops, F 220 JH 157, 23 July 1882, colored sketch in Letter, size unknown, Van Gogh Museum. 292 318. "You must picture" BVG 219, 7/23/1882.

Context:
JLB 250, 7/23/1882: "You must imagine me sitting at my attic window as early as 4 o'clock, studying the meadows and the carpenter's yard with my perspective frame."

319. Armand Cassagne Armand-Théophile Cassagne (1823-1907; French artist). Cassagne's ideas about the science and practice of perspective were built largely on those of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528; German artist). In Das Lehrbuch der Malerei (Treatise on Painting [1525]), Dürer not only discussed perspective in detail but also described a perspective frame ("Fadengitter") like the ones Vincent had made. (See Van Heugten, p. 22, n. 18.) Van Heugten believes, however, that despite Vincent's enthusiastic invocation of Dürer ("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" [JLB 235, 6/3/1882; emphasis in original]), that Vincent's knowledge of the Dürer source was probably "second-hand" -- presumably through Cassagne (Van Heugten, p. 22). 320. read Cassagne's book BVG 136, 9/24/1880. In September 1880, while still in the Borinage, Vincent reported: "In the meantime I'm busy reading a book on anatomy and another on perspective, which Mr. Tersteeg also sent me" (JLB 158, 9/24/1880). It is not until almost two years later that he identifies the book on perspective: "I remember very well that when you spoke to me back then about my becoming a painter, I thought it very inappropriate and wouldn't hear of it. What made me stop doubting is that I read a clearly written book on perspective, Cassagne, Guide de l'Abc du dessin [Guide to the ABCs of Drawing], and a week later drew an interior of a little kitchen, with stove, chair and table and window in their place and on their legs, whereas it used to seem to me downright witchcraft or coincidence that one had depth and proper perspective in a drawing." (JLB 214, 4/2/1882; emphasis in original.) Although he mis-remembers the name ("Guide de l'Abc du dessin" instead of Guide de I'alphabet du dessin), it is clear which Cassagne he is referring to.

Vincent subsequently read at least one other Cassagne book, Traité d'aquarelle (1875), during his summer in Etten in 1881 (JLB 168, June 1881). Although Vincent seems to have taken this book up to learn more about watercolor than perspective, it is probably where he encountered the reference to cadre rectificateur (correcting frame) or cadre isolateur (isolating frame). The Guide does not mention the device, only the mental "trick" of imagining a grid superimposed on an object. Vincent does not mention any of Cassagne's other books that offer more thorough and technical treatments of the subject, specifically Elements de perspective (prior to 1880) and Traité pratique de perspective (1873). We agree with Van Heugten that these difficult books "were beyond Van Gogh's technical grasp" (Van Heugten, p. 19), although he apparently knew of them (JLB 168, June 1881). (For a complete discussion, see Van Heugten, pp. 18-25.)

We take Vincent's description of his epiphanic first use of the Cassagne Guide in 1880 -- as we take all such reconstructed memories -- with a grain of salt. The story serves to bolster his claim that he was destined to be an artist and, simultaneously, to invoke Theo's role in putting him on this path, at a time when opposition from both Tersteeg and Mauve is casting a long shadow on the entire enterprise. The fact that Vincent did not mention in his letters at the time (1880) the name of the Cassagne book or this supposedly seminal experience supports our inference that, if it happened, it was swept aside by the much stronger enthusiasm for Bargue and the fever to draw figures.

321. for children Van Heugten, pp. 18-19: Van Heugten quotes the author's own ambition for the book: "'to teach the child how to draw just as it learns how to read and write." 322. he first emerged BVG 136, 9/24/1880: "Borinage" is used here as shorthand for the painful "molting" of Vincent's religious calling that culminated in the Borinage region. He left that psychological place and took up his new calling as an artist before he left the physical region of the Borinage.

Context:
JLB 158, 9/24/1880: "In the meantime I'm busy reading a book on anatomy and another on perspective, which Mr. Tersteeg also sent me."

323. recommended the use Van Heugten, p. 20: Actually, Cassagne recommended that a draftsman imagine a grid superimposed on an object. One was meant to construct it around an object or part of an object in one's mind's eye and then transfer the object to the paper in the correct proportions. An actual device (called both a cadre rectificateur [correcting frame] or a cadre isolateur [isolating frame]) is mentioned only in passing. The Guide mentions it not at all; the Traite, only briefly. The Traite d'aquarelle includes a more detailed description, although when Vincent read the latter in the summer of 1881, he read it primarily for guidance on watercolor, apparently, not perspective (JLB 168, June 1881). The text is meant to suggest that, until early 1882, the device was not a primary focus of either Vincent's or of Vincent's reading in Cassagne. The possibility that Vincent was first introduced to the perspective frame by Mauve should at least be mentioned. 324. divided by threads Wylie, p. 214. 325. for a carpenter BVG 209, 7/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 241, 7/1/1882: "The first person I came across here in Schenkweg was my friend the carpenter, who has helped me on several occasions with one job or another to do with making instruments for perspective."

326. "witchcraft" BVG 184, 4/1/1882-4/15/1882.

Context:
BVG 184, April 1882: "What made me stop doubting was reading a clear book on perspective, Cassagne's Guide to the ABC of Drawing; and a week later I drew the interior of a kitchen with stove, chair, table and window -- in their places and on their legs -- whereas before it had seemed to me that getting depth and the right perspective into a drawing was witchcraft or pure chance."
JLB 214, 4/2/1882: "What made me stop doubting is that I read a clearly written book on perspective, Cassagne, Guide de l'Abc du dessin, and a week later drew an interior of a little kitchen, with stove, chair and table and window in their place and on their legs, whereas it used to seem to me downright witchcraft or coincidence that one had depth and proper perspective in a drawing" (emphasis in original).

327. of proportion The issue of Vincent's command of perspective and proportion has been a contentious one: with defenders no less eminent than John Rewald and Meyer Schapiro arguing that Vincent's frequent lapses of correct perspective, especially in the later paintings, represent intentional liberties taken for "expressive" effect. Some extravagant critical claims made on Vincent's behalf in this regard are, in our opinion, misguided and occasionally preposterous (most notably Heelan's argument that Vincent was consciously describing a "non-Euclidean" world [Murray, pp. 410-411]). In general, twentieth-century criticism has been far more forgiving of such lapses than was Vincent himself. More recently, however, less hagiographic assessments have been willing to say what Vincent himself never denied: that he did not have complete, innate command of the rules of draftsmanship. Van Heugten puts the new view with admirable restraint: "Some quirky perspectives in his later work were undoubtedly intended to improve the composition or heighten the expressiveness, but it would be going too far to use this as a blanket excuse. One need only look at the distorted billiard table in The night cafe of 1888 to realise that mastery of perspective never became second nature to Van Gogh." (Van Heugten, p. 19.)

We also agree with Van Heugten that Vincent's understanding of Cassagne did not begin to approach that which has been attributed to him by some modern critics (ibid., n. 14), especially Wylie, who argues that Vincent created a "fusion" of Bargue and Cassagne into a unique system for describing three-dimensional space and that any "awkwardness" was the inevitable product of this fusion: "Van Gogh had discovered a way to use Bargue's descriptive angularity to state the specifically measured angles Cassagne saw as the key to a correct statement of the picture space. ... The reason for the clumsiness of the figure now becomes apparent; the outline is awkward because it has been built up from the descriptive angles of the several planes of the layered cube containing the figure." (Wylie, p. 215.) Again, to quote Van Heugten's admirable summary: "one seriously wonders whether the highly technical explanations, particularly in the Traité [pratique de perspective" by Cassagne], were not beyond Van Gogh's technical grasp. ... He had no real talent for intricate technical structures." (Van Heugten, p. 19.)

328. his unruly hand BVG 205, 6/3/1882. Vincent's descriptions of how the perspective frame works reveal his history of despair at working without it (see context). One of the aspects of perspective drawing that attracted Vincent was that it seemed like a science -- not a gift or a talent -- and therefore could be mastered through hard work alone. "However simple everything may look -- behind it there's very extensive general science," he tells Theo, citing the work of the brothers' shared favorite, French landscapist Georges Michel, whose "secret" depends on "taking accurate measurements, seeing correct proportions of foreground to background, and correctly feeling the direction the lines take through perspective. These are not things one finds by chance (Michel's work is abundant enough, and from it I see clearly how he was on a height, so to speak, doing it with ease) but things one knows, and I believe that before the period when everything started going well Michel was sometimes amazed and disappointed that things weren't working." (JLB 312, 2/11/1883; emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 235, 6/3/1882: "[The frame] 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." (Emphasis in original.)

329. unlocking the mysteries BVG 205, 6/3/1882: Vincent refers to one of his perspective drawings for Uncle Cor, Carpenter's Yard and Laundry (F 939 JH 150).

Context:
JLB 235, 6/3/1882: "I still believe that 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." (Emphasis added.)

330. 11½ inches by 7 inches Van Heugten, p. 23: Based on the traces of the frame's wires on Vincent's drawings, Van Heugten gives the exterior dimensions as "a little more than 29 cm long and 17 or 20 cm wide," and the interior dimensions as "approximately 24 cm" long and "probably 12 or 15 cm" wide. 331. ten or eleven Van Heugten, p. 24: "There must have been seven wires breadthwise and three or four lengthwise." 332. grid of little squares Van Heugten, p. 24: Van Heugten gives the dimensions of the wire squares as "approximately 3 cm" (a little less than 1¼ inches). 333. painstakingly transfer BVG 223, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882. Vincent's description tries to suggest that this was a casual, imprecise process. However, we believe he is self-consciously underplaying the extent to which, at this point, he relied on the perspective frame. He goes on in the same unreliably dismissive vein: "[It is helpful] that is, that one has a feeling for perspective and an understanding of why and how perspective appears to change the direction of lines and the size of masses and planes. Without that, the frame is little or no help, and makes your head spin when you look through it." (JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882; emphasis in original.) The second passage clearly indicates where the first passage is coming from: Vincent wants to make sure that Theo doesn't think the contraption makes the process so easy that just anybody can do it. It requires someone with "a feeling for perspective." Ironically, this is exactly what Vincent did not have -- a fact of which this denial suggests he was acutely aware.

Context:
JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882: "The perpendicular and horizontal lines of the frame, together with the diagonals and the cross -- or otherwise a grid of squares -- provide a clear guide to some of the principal features, so that one can make a drawing with a firm hand, setting out the broad outlines and proportions."

334. the balancing act Van Heugten, p. 24: Van Heugten offers somewhat conflicting arguments on this point. On the one hand, he says: "It was a handy instrument which must have been particularly useful in the city for observing subjects on the spot, the more so in that it could be used quite unobtrusively." But on the other hand, he concedes that the frame was unsuitable for careful or prolonged use, even under good conditions, because it required that "the object, the frame and the artist's eye remain in the same relative positions while the drawing is being made" (ibid.). We can safely assume that Vincent developed some procedure for setting himself up quickly in such a way as to free one hand to hold the frame, presumably sitting on a camp stool and balancing the sketchpad on his lap, or some way of independently securing the frame. Perhaps he secured the pad to the sleeve of the arm which held the frame. But none of these methods could have been ideal in anything other than static, uncrowded conditions. The second frame he had made in June-July addressed the problem by giving the frame its own support mechanism, freeing both hands; but it, too, must have required ideal conditions for optimal usefulness. 293 335. his "spy-hole" JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882. The original Dutch word is vizier. We have used JLB's translation, "view-finder", rather than Bonger's "viewer."

Context:
JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882: "I expect you can imagine how delightful it is to train this view-finder on the sea, on the green fields -- or in the winter on snow-covered land or in the autumn on the fantastic network of thin and thick trunks and branches, or on a stormy sky."

336. "I think you" BVG 223, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882.

Context:
JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882: "I expect you can imagine how delightful it is to train this view-finder on the sea, on the green fields ... or on a stormy sky."

337. "One can look" BVG 223, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882. We have adopted Van Heugten's translation (Van Heugten, p. 25).

Context:
BVG 223, 8/5/1882 or 8/6/1882: "So on the shore or in the meadow or in the fields one can took through it as through a window, the vertical lines and the perpendicular line of the frame and the diagonal lines and the point of intersection, or else the division in squares, certainly give a few basic markers, with the help of which one can make a firm drawing, from the indication of the main lines and proportions -- at least for those who have some instinct for perspective and some understanding of the reason why and the manner in which perspective gives an apparent change of direction to the lines and a change of size to the lines and to the whole mass" (emphasis in original).
JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882: "The result is that on the beach or in a meadow or a field you have a view AS IF THROUGH A WINDOW. The perpendicular and horizontal lines of the frame, together with the diagonals and the cross -- or otherwise a grid of squares -- provide a clear guide to some of the principal features, so that one can make a drawing with a firm hand, setting out the broad outlines and proportions. Assuming, that is, that one has a feeling for perspective and an understanding of why and how perspective appears to change the direction of lines and the size of masses and planes." (Emphasis in original.)

338. squinted his eyesBVG 309, 8/4/1883-8/8/1883. This habit is mentioned by others who watched Vincent work, both at the beginning and the end of his career (see Wylie, p. 217), and it is reported by Vincent himself (see context). These passages suggest that Vincent used the technique at this time (the summer of 1883) primarily for purposes of analyzing color composition, but that does mean it did not have other origins and other uses. Wylie points out that the effect of squinting is to increase the depth of field (Wylie, p. 217). Although her claims for the optical and theoretical implications of Vincent's squinting are extravagant (see Ch. 17, n. 327), we believe she is correct in pointing out that squinting more effectively superimposed the grid of the perspective frame on the distant view, allowing Vincent to better see both at once, as it were.

Context:
JLB 371, 8/7/1883: "Letting myself go a little and looking more through my eyelashes instead of looking sharply at the joints and analyzing how things fit together leads me more directly to see things as patches of colour next to each other. ... In those studies, for instance, there's something of that mysteriousness that one gets by looking at nature as if through the eyelashes, so that the forms simplify themselves into patches of colour."

339. Mauve may have taught Keefe, p. 78: According to Keefe, Mauve used to isolate the image "by cutting a small hole in a piece of paper and then looked through it at a selected piece of the landscape. He was thus undistracted by the surrounding area and was free to deal with one small portion." This, of course, is exactly the same theory and close to the same practice as Cassagne's cadre isolateur. It is not a long conceptual leap from this to Vincent's habit of squinting, which could accomplish something like the same isolation of the selected subject when a piece of paper of the appropriate size was not available. 340. "The lines" BVG 219, 7/23/1882.

Context:
JLB 219, 4/21/1882: "The lines of the roofs and gutters now shoot away nicely like arrows from a bow."

341. "infinity of delicate" BVG 219, 7/23/1882.

Context:
BVG 219, 7/23/1882: "Beyond it all lies an infinity of delicate, soft green, miles and miles of flat meadow, and a grey sky, as calm, as peaceful as Corot or Van Goyen."
JLB 250, 7/23/1882: "But behind this an infinity of delicate, gentle green, miles and miles of flat meadow, and a grey sky as still, as peaceful as Corot or Van Goyen."

342. two more frames madeVan Heugten, p. 23. Van Heugten describes three perspective frames that Vincent had made by August 1882. The text details the first of these, which Vincent began to use by March 1882 and probably used the rest of his life. Much less is known about the second frame except that it was larger than the first (with an interval between the wires of 2-2¼ inches [5-6 centimeters]). The frame itself was 1½ inches. (4 centimeters) wide (Van Heugten, p. 24, n. 20). The third frame was the deluxe model, designed with rigorous outdoor use in mind (see Ch. 17, n. 344), which Vincent describes and illustrates in JLB 253, 8/5/1882 and JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882. According to Van Heugten, this third frame was slightly larger than the second frame. According to Vincent's drawing, its wires were arranged differently than the other two, with one vertical, one horizontal, and two diagonals -- another arrangement recommended by Cassagne (ibid., p. 24). However, Van Heugten points out that, while some later paintings and drawings show signs of diagonal guidelines, no such signs have been detected in any Hague period work, suggesting that Vincent's letter sketch may be misleading (ibid., p. 25). 343. iron corners BVG 223, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882.

Context:
JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882: "I've just come back from the blacksmith, who has put iron spikes on the legs and iron corners on the frame."

344. legs for uneven ground BVG 222, 8/5/1882. The stand worked by means of two sturdy poles with iron points (JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882). Each pole was drilled at intervals to receive wooden pegs. The pegs were inserted through holes on either side of the perspective frame and then into the poles. (The frame was drilled on all four sides so that it could be placed either horizontally or vertically.) Because the poles were separate, they could be placed at different heights and the frame bridging them could be pegged on each side at different places on the poles to achieve level. Not surprisingly, rather than explain it in words, Vincent included a detailed drawing in JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882, and a rather dramatic sketch of it being used in JLB 253, 8/5/1882, which Van Heugten warns "should not be taken too literally" (Van Heugten, p. 25). Although he bragged about the adaptability and durability of his design ("on the beach or in a meadow or a field you have a view AS IF THROUGH A WINDOW") (JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882), it is hard to imagine that it was not perversely precarious on rough ground or in inclement conditions.

Context:
JLB 253, 8/5/1882: "I'm having a new and, I hope, better perspective frame made, which will stand firmly on two legs in uneven ground like the dunes. Like this, for example."

345. "a fine piece" BVG 223, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882.

Context:
BVG 223, 8/5/1882 or 8/6/1882: "The perspective frame is really a fine piece of workmanship; I am sorry you did not see it before you left."
JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882: "The frame really has become an excellent piece of equipment -- it's a pity you still haven't seen it."

346. into his studio Van Heugten, p. 203: Van Heugten reports traces of the perspective frame even on close-up portraits, such as Head of a Fisherman with a Sou'wester (F 1015 JH 307). 347. drawing them "faithfully" BVG 219, 7/23/1882.

Context:
BVG 219, 7/23/1882: "Provided I can just keep going, well then, I shall fight my fight quietly in this way and no other -- by calmly looking through my little window at natural things and drawing them faithfully and with love."
JLB 250, 7/23/1882: "Provided I can stay on my feet, well I'll fight my fight quietly in this way and no other, that is by calmly looking through my little window at the things in nature, and drawing them faithfully and lovingly."

348. "She sees" BVG 194, 5/4/1882-5/12/1882: We have altered the verb tense from the original (see context).

Context:
BVG 194, 5/4/1882-5/12/1882: "In a short time she became as meek as a tame dove, certainly not from my coercing her, but because she saw that I was not rough."
JLB 225, 5/10/1882: "In a short time she became as gentle as a tame dove, certainly not by force on my part but because she saw that I wasn't rough" (emphasis in original).

349. "and she wants" BVG 193, 5/14/1882.

Context:
BVG 193, 5/14/1882: "Christien does not know any details, nor does she ask for them, but she knows I shall be frank with her, and she wants to stay with me quand bien même."
JLB 228, 5/16/1882: "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."

350. Images of motherhood BVG 181, 3/11/1882. This is the most obvious example, and the oddest: "An artist's work and his private life are like a woman in childbed and her child. You may look at her child, but you may not lift up her chemise to see if there are any bloodstains on it, that would be indelicate on the occasion of a maternity visit." (JLB 211, 3/11/1882.) Significantly, images of fatherhood seem to hold no interest for Vincent. Although he occasionally collected them in the past, he no longer reports doing so, nor does he recollect them, or describe them -- the usual signs of Vincent's visual-emotional preoccupations. The parent-child relationship appears to begin and end with motherhood. He does not project himself into a father role, either in his letters or in his images. His obsession with motherhood seems to be about eavesdropping on the idealized relationship between mother and child. He may be identifying with the mother, or the child, or both, but never with the missing father. This set of issues will come up again in relation to his great conflicted portrait of conflicted motherhood, La Berceuse. 351. Michelet's "triple and absolute" Michelet, p. 50: "Nature has bound up life within a triple and absolute tie: man, woman, and child. Separately, they are sure to perish, and are only saved together." 352. medicine for Sien BVG 192, 5/3/1882-5/12/1882: Vincent refers to them as "remedies" when he finally admits to buying them, but his defensiveness on the issue of cost comes through clearly.

Context:
JLB 224, 5/7/1882: "I made her take baths and as much fortifying remedies as I could afford, she's become much healthier."

353. rent

BVG 192, 5/3/1882-5/12/1882: In May, Vincent admits only paying Sien's rent, continuing to maintain that Sien lived with her mother, sister, and daughter in a "charity court" (which he later drew [Sien's Mother's House (F 941 JH 146); Sien's Mother's House, Closer View (F 942 JH 147)]). But surely this is a fiction. Vincent's frequent references to their life together prior to his confession to Theo make it clear that she was living primarily with him, not with her mother, who was no doubt taking care of the two young girls, whom Vincent rarely mentions. In June, Dorus visited the Schenkweg apartment while Vincent was in the hospital. He asked the neighbors to let him into Vincent's studio "but they did not have the key" (b2240 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 6/14/1882). This may indicate that Sien was living there.

Context:
JLB 224, 5/7/1882: "I couldn't give her a model's full daily wage, but all the same, I paid her rent and have until now been able, thank God, to preserve her and her child from hunger and cold by sharing my own bread with her."

354. Sien's mother, clothes BVG 199, 5/16/1882: Preparations were made for the baby and Vincent wrote on this subject a month and a half before the baby was born.

Context:
JLB 229, 5/18/1882: "The linen for the child is ready too -- the essentials."

355. pay Sien's doctor BVG 202, 5/27/1882. Theo did not earmark money for rent, but Vincent did not pay rent in either April or May (JLB 233, 5/30/1882). (Van Rappard sent him 2.5 guilders ostensibly to have a drawing repaired, but Vincent apparently used the money to pay a third of the April rent [JLB 233, 5/30/1882]. Vincent returned the money in June, after Uncle Cor's payment arrived and Vincent upped his allowance to 150 francs from 100 per month [JLB 236, 6/6/1882]). Eager to deflect blame from his relationship with Sien, Vincent does not admit straight out where the money went, but instead buries the admission in a cloud of pleadings: "But, old chap, this has been an anxious fortnight for me. When I wrote to you around the middle of May, all I had left was 3 or 3.50 guilders after paying the baker. I had practically nothing else to eat but dry black bread with a little coffee, and Sien too. Because we'd bought linen for her baby and she'd been to Leiden &c. The rent is due on 1 June, and I have nothing, literally nothing. I hope you'll send something. ... I'm hoping for your letter. Accept a handshake in thought, but above all write soon and save me from the landlord." (JLB 231, 5/27/1882; emphasis added.) The "trip to Leiden," of course, was the trip on which Sien had to have a procedure with forceps to reposition the baby. Paradoxically, in Vincent's letters, "etc." is often a signal that something important is being left unsaid. 356. made her take baths BVG 192, 5/3/1882-5/12/1882.

Context:
JLB 224, 5/7/1882: "I made her take baths and as much fortifying remedies as I could afford, she's become much healthier."

357. and long walks BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882.

Context:
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Now, thanks to plain food, plenty of walking and fresh air and taking baths, she's much stronger and more robust than then."

358. He administered "restoratives" BVG 192, 5/3/1882-5/12/1882: Vincent does not detail what these "restoratives" -- presumably medicines or supplements of some kind -- were.

Context:
BVG 192, 5/3/1882-5/12/1882: "I made her take baths and as many restoratives as I could manage, and she has become much healthier. I have been with her to Leiden, where there is a maternity hospital in which she will be confined."
JLB 224, 5/7/1882: "I made her take baths and as much fortifying remedies as I could afford, she's become much healthier. I went with her to Leiden, where there's a maternity hospital she'll go to for her confinement."

359. she ate "simple food" BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882.

Context:
BVG 201, 6/2/1882: "Now, by eating simple food, by walking in the open air a lot, and by taking baths, she has become much healthier and stronger."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Now, thanks to plain food, plenty of walking and fresh air and taking baths, she's much stronger and more robust than then."

360. plenty of fresh air BVG 210, 7/2/1882.

Context:
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "She'd recover of her own accord, provided there are no complications, with rest, tonics, plenty of fresh air and no heavy labour."

361. "I have taken" BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882.

Context:
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "I picked her up and gave her all the love, all the tenderness, all the care, that was in me."

362. hospital in Leiden "Hoornik Geneaology," n.p.: Sien's uncle Johannes Cornelis Hoornik, "a cigar maker," married Elisabeth Perrin (also Perein) whose family was from Leiden. It is purely speculation, but these in-laws may have been what brought Sien to this university town ten miles north of The Hague. We have been unable to locate any record of where Sien's other children were born, but Vincent mentions, in an aside that appears to give him no pause, that the doctor in Leiden "[knew Sien] from the past" (JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882). Sien's reasons for going to Leiden for care instead of The Hague may also have been related to her "profession" and the fact that the latter was the only major city in the Netherlands that regulated prostitution (Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, p. 66). 363. he accompanied herBVG 192, 5/3/1882-5/12/1882. The exact date of this trip is not clear. Vincent later refers to a March trip at which he appears to have been present (BVG 199, 5/16/1882), but the official hospital records show only one pre-natal visit by Sien, in May (Luyendijk-Elshout, p. 8; see Ch. 17, n. 365).

Context:
JLB 224, 5/7/1882: "I went with her to Leiden, where there's a maternity hospital she'll go to for her confinement."

294 364. Vincent represented SienThat is the clear implication of this passage about a meeting with Sien's doctor at which Vincent was apparently present (see Ch. 17, n. 365): "In March the professor couldn't say exactly when she'd give birth, but thought it would be the end of May or beginning of June. Now he says it will probably be well into June, and he has altered her admission note for the hospital to mid-June. This time he asked her at length about who she was with, and because of what he said about that I'm now quite certain of what I thought before: that she'd collapse if she had to go back onto the streets." (JLB 229, 5/18/1882.) Vincent got to know the doctor, Simon Thomas, so well (he thought) that in the heat of his battle with his parents over marrying Sien, he proposed asking Thomas for an "official statement" that he, Vincent, was sane -- i.e., not a suitable candidate for guardianship or commitment (JLB 237, 6/8/1882). 365. like a husband There are various ways to read Vincent's confusing mentions of his trips to Leiden with Sien for pre-natal care. One is that Vincent accompanied her for "an operation" in March when he was party to a discussion with her doctor about the due date (JLB 229, 5/18/1882). "[A]s you know, she had an operation in March" (ibid.). Surely this is the same operation Vincent refers to, without a definite date, in another letter from May: "No wonder she was ill, the child was the wrong way round and she had to have an operation, which entailed turning the child with forceps. Still, there's a good chance that she'll come through it all right." (JLB 224, 5/7/1882). According to current medical practice, the use of forceps on a fetus in the sixth month of pregnancy is inconceivable. Vincent probably has this wrong, despite the fact that he was probably present, at least at the hospital. This was also the visit at which Sien's doctor recalculated the expected delivery date, moving it back to June, a delay of one month: "In March the professor couldn't say exactly when she'd give birth, but thought it would be the end of May or beginning of June. Now he says it will probably be well into June." (JLB 229, 5/18/1882.)

Apparently, Vincent did not, however, accompany Sien on a second visit to Leiden in May. "[Sien] had a lot of cramp &c., and so it seemed to me best for her to go to Leiden again to find out exactly what was wrong," he reports in mid-May (ibid.). "She went there and came back again" (ibid., emphasis added). Around the same time, he recounts giving Sien what sounds like a parting message as she leaves for the hospital: "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." (JLB 228, 5/16/1882; emphasis added.) At the end of the month, he writes that "she'd [Sien] been to Leiden" (JLB 231, 5/27/1882). Because all of this is said in the middle of an urgent plea for money, however, Vincent may have been trying to minimize his role in funding the Leiden trip. It is at least possible that he took her to Leiden in May and left her there, which would account for JLB 228, 5/16/1882, and that is the trip he refers to in JLB 224, 5/7/1882, which would mean that he might not have been in Leiden in March. The reference to her doctor's prognosis after the March procedure (JLB 229, 5/18/1882) could allude to hearsay from Sien.

366. "the poor creature" BVG 217, 7/19/1882.

Context:
BVG 217, 7/19/1882: " The poor creature has had a very hard time of it."
JLB 248, 7/19/1882: " The poor creature has suffered appallingly."

367. about headaches BVG 173, 1/26/1882.

Context:
JLB 203, 1/26/1882: "What I feared would happen when last I wrote to you has now truly come about, namely that I fell ill and spent three days or so lying in bed with fever and anxiety. Accompanied now and then by headache and toothache."

368. weakness BVG 173, 1/26/1882: With great confidence in a lifetime of good health, Vincent was dismissive even of symptoms that sound serious.

Context:
JLB 203, 1/26/1882: "This evening I felt completely weak and miserable. But if I do as little as possible for a couple of days then it will be over for a good long time, and if I'm careful I needn't be afraid that it will recur for the time being. ... I have some hope that as soon as I'm completely better things will go well, a little better than now. If I have to rest for a while I'll do it, but it will probably be over soon."

369. "my youth is gone" BVG 173, 1/26/1882. As of late January, Vincent's dismissive attitude toward physical ailments sounds, for the first time, edged with worry: "All things considered, though, I'm not like I was a year or so ago, when I never had to stay in bed for a day, and now there's something thwarting me at every turn, even if it isn't so bad" (JLB 203, 1/26/1882).

Context:
BVG 173, 1/26/1882: "Well, my youth is gone -- not my love of life or my energy, but I mean the time when one feels so lighthearted and carefree."
JLB 203, 1/26/1882: "In short, my youth is past, not my love of life or my vitality, but I mean the time when one doesn't feel that one lives, and lives without effort."

370. he barely mentioned BVG 200, 5/23/1882. It is probably an indication of how serious the problem has become that, after not having complained at all about his health since January, he repeats the same complaint in his very next letter less than a week later: "A week ago I was terribly weak due to constant sleeplessness" (JLB 231, 5/27/1882).

Context:
JLB 230, 5/23/1882: "I've been rather weak for the last fortnight and haven't felt well."

371. flood of letters In the two months between early April and early June, Vincent wrote twenty-four letters, twenty-two of them to Theo (JLB 214-235, non-sequentially), and two to Van Rappard (JLB 232 and 236). Some of these were quite long (the transcription of JLB 228 runs to six single-spaced typed pages), and at least two (JLB 227 and 228) appear to have been written on the same day. The total output for the two-month period fills about sixty single-spaced typed pages. 372. "I haven't given" BVG 200, 5/23/1882. Once he is in hospital, Vincent admits that he has been keeping the truth about his health from Theo (and, no doubt, from himself) for a long time: "For the worst was before I came to this hospital, long before" (JLB 239, 6/22/1882). How much he has been concealing is revealed in a letter he wrote to Van Rappard from his hospital bed: "I couldn't urinate, and in the end I was so anxious and in such pain that I came here" (JLB 240, 6/24/1882). Interestingly, Vincent never was able to admit the truth about his illness to Van Rappard, telling him only: "I caught a cold and then had fever and nerves as well" -- at best, a partial truth; at worst, a blatant lie (ibid.).

Context:
BVG 200, 5/23/1882: "During the last fortnight I have been weak, not feeling well at all; I haven't given in to it and have gone on with my work."
JLB 230, 5/23/1882: "I've been rather weak for the last fortnight and haven't felt well. I didn't want to give in to it and carried on regardless."

373. "I am in" BVG 206, 6/8/1882-6/9/1882. As to the date of Vincent's admission to the hospital, Tralbaut reproduces a detail of the hospital register showing Vincent was admitted as patient number 349 on Wednesday, June 7, 1882 (Tralbaut, p. 87). A slightly earlier admission date is suggested by a letter from Dorus after his visit to Vincent in the hospital in which he says that, on June 13, Vincent produced a hospital bill showing "he had been there for eight days." (b2240 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 6/14/1882). That would put the admission on June 6. It is possible that Vincent came in late on June 6, in an emergency situation, and was not registered until the next day when the hospital clerk returned to work.

Context:
BVG 206, 6/8/1882-6/9/1882: " I am in the hospital, where I shall stay only a fortnight, however. For three weeks I have been suffering from insomnia and low fever, and passing water was painful. And now it seems that I really have what they call the 'clap,' but only a mild case."
JLB 237, 6/8/1882: " 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.'"

374. entered the hospital Haeseker and Koch, n.p. Vincent gave the address as No. 9. Brouwersgracht (JLB 238, 6/9/1882). 375. ward with ten beds BVG 206, 6/8/1882-6/9/1882. According to the hospital register, Vincent occupied bed number nine (reproduced in Tralbaut, p. 87).

Context:
JLB 237, 6/8/1882: "There are 10 beds in a ward, and I must say that the treatment is very good in every respect."

376. overflowing chamber pots BVG 209, 7/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 241, 7/1/1882: "I can't tell you with what pleasure I sit here again in the studio after spending so long in an environment of chamber-pots &c."

377. abrupt male nurses BVG 208, 6/22/1882: Vincent criticizes the male nurses in comparison to the doctor whom he admires.

Context:
JLB 239, 6/22/1882: "It's extraordinary how patient he is when rubbing, massaging and manipulating the sick himself in various ways. He's far stronger than an orderly." (Emphasis added.)

378. "no less interesting" BVG 207, 6/10/1882.

Context:
BVG 207, 6/10/1882: "And the ward here is no less interesting to me than the third-class waiting room."
JLB 238, 6/9/1882: "And here in the ward it's no less fascinating for me than the 3rd-class waiting room."

379. "How I should love to make" BVG 208, 6/22/1882.

Context:
BVG 208, 6/22/1882: "If I could only work here, how I should love to make some studies of the wards."
JLB 239, 6/22/1882: "If only I could settle myself as I need, how I would love to do some studies here in the wards."

380. his gonorrhea "Psychological Study of Vincent Van Gogh," p. 12: More precisely, gonorrhea of the posterior urethra. 381. a mild case BVG 206, 6/8/1882-6/9/1882. Vincent's diagnosis in The Hague was "gonorrhea," with no mention, either in Vincent's letters or in the hospital record, of syphilis. Nevertheless, the claim has frequently been made that Vincent was suffering from syphilis at this time. The evidence for such a claim, both direct and indirect, pertains only to a later period. Therefore, we will take up the topic again at that time.

Context:
BVG 206, 6/8/1882-6/9/1882: "And now it seems that I really have what they call the 'clap,' but only a mild case."
JLB 237, 6/8/1882: "And now it turns out that I've got a very mild case of what's known as 'a dose of the clap.'"

382. a few weeks BVG 206, 6/8/1882-6/9/1882. In his very first letter from the hospital, Vincent says with surprising firmness: "I'm in hospital, although I'll only be here for about a fortnight" (JLB 237, 6/8/1882). In his next letter a few days later, he confidently reassures Theo: "The main thing you should know now is that it isn't bad, and only a short period of treatment here will be needed to get me back on my feet" (JLB 238, 6/9/1882). 383. quinine pills BVG 206, 6/8/1882-6/9/1882.

Context:
JLB 237, 6/8/1882: "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."

384. sulfate irrigations BVG 206, 6/8/1882-6/9/1882. Vincent characterizes the irrigations as "instillations of pure water or alum water," but according to the hospital records, as reported by Jansen, Vincent's injections consisted of "Injectiones c[um] Sol[utio] Sulphfatis] Zincficum]" i.e., zinc sulfate (Jansen, p. 113; see Arnold, pp. 75-76).

Context:
JLB 237, 6/8/1882: "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."

385. confined to bed BVG 207, 6/10/1882.

Context:
JLB 238, 6/9/1882: "The rest is doing me so much good and making me much calmer and taking away the nervousness I've suffered from so much recently."

386. brought Dickens novels BVG 208, 6/22/1882.

Context:
JLB 239, 6/22/1882: "I have a book by Dickens and my perspective books."

387. books on perspective BVG 208, 6/22/1882: Vincent does not say which Dickens novels or which books on perspective.

Context:
JLB 239, 6/22/1882: "I have a book by Dickens and my perspective books."

388. sneaked from his bed BVG 207, 6/10/1882.

Context:
JLB 238, 6/9/1882: "But despite not being allowed to get out of bed, in the evening I can't resist going over to look at it."

389. "The whole is a" BVG 207, 6/10/1882.

Context:
BVG 207, 6/10/1882: "The view from the window of the ward is splendid: yards on the canal, with the barges loaded with potatoes, rear view of houses that are being pulled down by workmen, part of a garden; and on the next, more distant, plane the Quay with its rows of trees and street lamps, a very complicated little almshouse with little gardens connected to it; and finally, all the roofs. The whole is a bird's-eye view which, especially in the evenings and in the mornings, is mysterious because of the light's effect, for instance, like a Ruysdael or Van der Meer."
JLB 238, 6/9/1882: "The view from the window of the ward is splendid to me: wharves, the canal with potato barges, the backs of houses being demolished, with workers, a bit of garden and in the next, more distant plane the quay with the row of trees and lamp-posts, a complicated court with its gardens, and also all the roofs, all seen in a bird's-eye view, but made mysterious in the evening and morning above all by the light effect like, for example, a Ruisdael or Vermeer."

390. always found pleasure BVG 148, 8/1/1881-8/15/1881: The clearest statement of this comes from the previous summer of 1881 in Etten (see context).

Context:
JLB 170, 8/5/1881: "I did stay in bed the day after you left and have spoken to Dr [Ludovicus Cornelis] Van Genk, a thoroughly practical man, not because I thought this insignificant malaise to be worth the bother, but rather because in general, well or not well, I like to speak to a doctor from time to time to find out if everything is all right."

391. painting "consoles me" BVG 560, 12/4/1888.

Context:
BVG 560, 12/4/1888: "You know how I feel about this, how I feel in my element, and that it consoles me up to a certain point for not being a doctor."
JLB 723, 12/1/1888: "You can sense how in my element that makes me feel, and that it consoles me to a certain extent for not being a doctor."

392. colleague, Iterson BVG 209, 7/1/1882: For unknown reasons, Vincent complains more about Teunis van Iterson's visit than Tersteeg's.

Context:
JLB 241, 7/1/1882: "Then a few days later Iterson came as well, about which I cared much less."

393. his cousin Johan BVG 209, 7/1/1882. Johannes van Gogh Jr. (1854-1913), son of Johannes van Gogh Sr. (Uncle Jan) (1817-1885).

Context:
JLB 241, 7/1/1882: "Johan van Gogh, who I thought was in Helvoirt but turns out to be living in Stationsweg these days."

394. gallingly proper Tersteeg BVG 209, 7/1/1882. About this visit, Vincent says, somewhat surprisingly: "Most unexpectedly, I had a visit in the hospital from Mr. Tersteeg, which gave me great pleasure in one sense, although we didn't talk about anything special, nor is that necessary. But I thought it very kind." (JLB 241, 7/1/1882.) Perhaps this reaction should be seen as just another spike in a relationship that never achieved equilibrium. 395. "She came" BVG 208, 6/22/1882.

Context:
BVG 208, 6/22/1882: " She came to visit me regularly until the last day, and brought me some smoked beef and sugar or bread, which I have to do without now, and it makes me feel very faint."
JLB 239, 6/22/1882: "Until the last day she was here she visited me regularly and brought me a little smoked meat or sugar or bread, which is now finished, leaving me feeling very faint."

396. on June 13 b2240 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1882. In his letter dated June 14, Dorus writes: "Yesterday morning at 10 o'clock, I returned from Leiden and went back to see him [Vincent] again." As discussed in Ch. 17, n. 670, Dorus visited his son twice in the hospital, on June 12 and 13. For reasons discussed there, we believe the close encounter with Sien probably took place during the second visit. 397. for visiting hours b2240 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1882: There are two ways to read Dorus's letter reporting his second visit to Vincent's hospital room on Tuesday, June 13, 1882: "When the hour came for other visitors I noticed that he was restlessly looking at the door." It is possible that there were special family visiting hours, but the most likely explanation is that Dorus, as a member of the clergy, could see patients at any time. That is the position adopted in the text. 398. Sien crossed paths BVG 214, 7/7/1882: It is interesting to speculate on how, if Dorus did not know Sien and Sien did not know Dorus, Vincent put this picture together. If, as his father reports, Vincent was nervously waiting for Sien to enter, he may have asked her after Dorus left if she had noticed the preacher in the lobby. Apparently, she did. It seems less likely that she recognized him from Vincent's pictures or from oral descriptions Vincent gave her. By all accounts, he did not expect his father's visit.

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "She [Sien] saw Pa when he came because it was the visiting hour and she was sitting downstairs in the corridor waiting, but of course Pa didn't know her."

399. for the first time b2240 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1882. Although Vincent only mentions one visit from his father in letters to Theo (JLB 239, 6/22/1882), Dorus in fact visited Vincent twice in the Municipal in The Hague. The first visit was Monday, June 12, at 3:00 P.M.; the second was Tuesday, June 13, at 10:00 A.M. Dorus and Anna had received a letter from Vincent on the previous Saturday informing them of his illness and hospitalization. Dorus writes, "If it had been possible, I would have gone on Sunday already, but I had to preach" (b2240 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1882). This suggests that although he spent the night in Leiden with relatives, Dorus's trip was prompted by Vincent's condition.

His other activities while in The Hague, on both days, also suggest this was yet another well-intentioned but misbegotten rescue attempt. "Immediately upon my arrival, I went to the hospital, but could not talk with the director until two o'clock because he was busy doing an operation. I also was not allowed to see the patient before three o'clock. Then I went to Mauve's, but he was away on travel and his wife was out shopping. Then to Tersteeg, who was not at home either until two. When I finally talked to Tersteeg, he did not know anything about Vincent['s illness]. Vincent had severed all connections. [This exchange must have prompted Tersteeg's unexpected visited to Vincent in the hospital reported in JLB 241, 7/1/1882.] ... At two o'clock I talked with the doctor [i.e., the director, Gerrit Pieter van Tienhoven, (JLB 243, 7/4/1882)]. In answer to my questions, he said the patient's illness is katharalen in nature [i.e., can be treated by means of a catheter]." (b2240 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1882.) The next day, Dorus returned from Leiden and visited Vincent again in the morning.

Because Dorus's narrative skips around in the course of a long letter, it is not always certain which conversations he relates took place on the first visit and which on the second. For narrative convenience, we have conflated these conversations. The offer of returning to Etten almost certainly took place on the first visit. The close encounter in the hospital lobby and Vincent's unease over the possibility of his father meeting Sien could have taken place on either visit, but probably occurred on the second visit.

400. traveled from Ettenb2240 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1882. (See Ch. 17, n. 399.) 401. "I invited Vincent" b2240 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1882. 402. their conversation b2240 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1882: Dorus and Vincent had two very different takes on their conversation (actually two conversations). Dorus writes, "Vincent was somewhat surprised to see me, somewhat irritable." Dorus also reports that Vincent complained about the "chilly way" in which Uncle Cor had received his drawings and reported, as a counterbalance, that Van Rappard "had seen them and judged them so favorably." As he left, Dorus "secretly" handed Vincent a piece of ox tongue (presumably, a delicacy) wrapped together with a 10 florin coin. "As I left, I whispered to him that he should be careful with the package because there was something in it (I meant that coin), so he put the package under his mattress." This action, presumably because the ox tongue did not belong under the mattress, prompts one of Dorus's more memorable assessments of Vincent: "He always remains strange" (ibid.). Vincent's recollection of the conversation(s) with his father is far more terse and dismissive. "Pa visited me the first days that I was here, although very briefly and in great haste, and I wasn't really able to talk about anything. I would rather he had visited at another time, when it could truly have been of more good for both of us." (JLB 239, 6/22/1882.) 403. "restlessly looking"b2240 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1882. 295 404. Vincent declined b2240 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1882: "Although he appreciated our intention he thought it would be better not to make use of it." 405. "I want to go back" b2240 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1882: Dorus does not put this line in quotations: "He thought it would be better not to make use of [the invitation], because he wanted to go back to work." 406. "It was very" BVG 208, 6/22/1882.

Context:
BVG 208, 6/22/1882: "This way it was very strange to me, and seemed more or less like a dream, as does this whole business of lying here ill."
JLB 239, 6/22/1882: "Now it was very strange for me, and seemed more or less like a dream -- as does this whole business of lying here being ill."

407. On June 22Luyendijk-Elshout, p. 8: According to Luyendijk-Elshout, June 22 was the day on which she came to the hospital. According to Hulsker, she left for Leiden on June 14 (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, pp. 134-135). We do not know the source of Hulsker's information, but it is possible she left for Leiden some days before she checked into the maternity ward there. She apparently had family in Leiden (see Ch. 17, n. 362). 408. difficult and dangerous BVG 268a, 2/12/1883. Looking back, Vincent recalls that Sien "has undergone a difficult operation" (JLB 313, 2/12/1883). However, in one of her letters from the maternity hospital, Sien apparently wrote Vincent that "there was nothing in particular wrong except for inner frailty" (JLB 241, 7/1/1882).

Context:
JLB 313, 2/12/1883: "1) both have undergone a difficult operation and weren't entirely calm throughout that operation, despite the chloroform; 2) shortly before the operation both had huge shocks to the mind through anxiety and tension and unrest, and their morale suffered almost more than a nervous system can bear."

409. worsening condition BVG 208, 6/22/1882.

Context:
JLB 239, 6/22/1882: "I believe that when Sien had to go I became too nervous and then broke down, but there are times when one can't always remain cool-headed. She's lying there so alone, and I would so like to go there because these will be frightening days for her."

410. "stretching" the canal BVG 209, 7/1/1882.

Context:
BVG 209, 7/1/1882: "Gradually the bougies they use get bigger, and every time one is introduced, things are stretched a little more; this is not only very painful but also extremely nauseating, as the thing is left inside for some time."
JLB 241, 7/1/1882: "The probes gradually become thicker, and each time a new one goes in everything is stretched a little further, and that's painful, but above all extremely unpleasant, particularly because the thing is left in place for a time."

411. left him lame BVG 209, 7/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 241, 7/1/1882: "The probes gradually become thicker, and each time a new one goes in everything is stretched a little further, and that's painful, but above all extremely unpleasant, particularly because the thing is left in place for a time."

412. soreness for days BVG 209, 7/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 241, 7/1/1882: "Blood comes out when it's removed, and then you feel relatively free for a few days, while the pain it causes disappears."

413. uttered a complaint BVG 209, 7/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 241, 7/1/1882: "Yet the sense of getting better makes you forget all the catheters and probes and instillations ... until you see the doctor approaching with them again. And that isn't a very pleasant moment."

414. "What are" BVG 208, 6/22/1882.

Context:
JLB 239, 6/22/1882: "What does what we men have signify compared with the terrible suffering that women must endure in childbirth?"

415. received a melancholy BVG 209, 7/1/1882.

Context:
JLB 241, 7/1/1882: "... the latest letter from Sien was very melancholy. She hadn't yet given birth but was expecting to at any hour ..."

416. "She has not" BVG 209, 7/1/1882.

Context:
BVG 209, 7/1/1882: "Sien's last letter was very melancholy; she has not been delivered yet, but awaited it every hour. Now that the waiting has lasted for days, I am very anxious about it, and it was especially to visit her that I asked the doctor if there were any possibility of his giving me a short leave instead of walks in the garden."
JLB 241, 7/1/1882: "... the latest letter from Sien was very melancholy. She hadn't yet given birth but was expecting to at any hour, and I feel very worried, because this waiting has been going on for days. It was chiefly to be able to visit her that I asked the doctor to change the walks in the garden into a short leave of absence, if it was at all possible."

417. patient suffering BVG 208, 6/22/1882. The context is less flattering than the excerpt.

Context:
JLB 239, 6/22/1882: "They [women] are our masters when it comes to suffering pain, but in other things we are the winners."

418. July 1, still uncured BVG R10, 6/28/1882. Three days before his departure for Leiden, Vincent reports to Van Rappard: "I'm not clear of it yet, and still don't know whether I'll be able to go home soon. I hope it will be over within a week, but it will take some time in any event." (JLB 240, 6/24/1882.) After his return from Leiden, he admits, "I've been ill for four weeks -- and still not better" (JLB 244, 7/6/1882). In fact, it appears he was not actually "cured" of the gonorrheal infection until the end of October 1882 (JLB 272, 10/15/1882). 419. "faint and feeble"BVG R10, 6/28/1882. Vincent reports this three days before his departure for Leiden. On the optimistic side, he adds "I feel as if I'm now almost completely cured," but this should be heavily discounted (JLB 240, 6/24/1882). All of his correspondence with Van Rappard at this time is relentlessly upbeat in tone. On July 1, he reports to Theo that "[I] feel on top of the world," but this, too, should be taken with some skepticism, as he has already left the hospital and is now deeply invested in the version of his departure that he has given Theo (JLB 241, 7/1/1882). (See Ch. 17, n. 420.)

Context:
BVG R10, 6/28/1882: "I have not been able to draw until today, and even now it is only a very faint and feeble start."
JLB 240, 6/24/1882: "I'm in a ward with 10 beds, but until today I was unable to draw because I had to lie still, and even now I've made only a very faint and weak beginning."

420. left his sickbed There is conflicting evidence about Vincent's departure from the hospital in The Hague. At the time, he heavily implies to Theo that the doctors gave him a leave to go to Leiden: "I feel very worried, because this waiting has been going on for days. It was chiefly to be able to visit her that I asked the doctor to change the walks in the garden into a short leave of absence, if it was at all possible." (JLB 241, 7/1/1882.) Yet when he returns, he does not check back into the hospital (although he does report that he is obligated to return to the hospital the following Tuesday [July 4] for an examination [ibid.]). There is no doubt at all that he has not yet recovered. In the next letter, after his return from Leiden, he suggests that that he may go back into the hospital for an extended period ("Sien may be back from hospital before I am" [JLB 243, 7/4/1882; emphasis added]). In the next letter, he admits, "I've been ill for four weeks -- and still not better" (JLB 244, 7/6/1882). Almost a year later, in recounting his trip to Leiden, he tells Van Rappard, "I got up, against the doctor's advice in fact, and went to see her" (JLB 307, 2/4/1883). This last is not as dispositive as it sounds, however, as Vincent's accounts of his relationship with Sien to Van Rappard are filled with fallacies and misdirections. Perhaps the most likely explanation is that Vincent argued his doctors into releasing him before they would have preferred to. 421. Leading Sien's mother BVG 210, 7/2/1882.

Context:
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "Her mother and child and I went there together -- you can imagine how tense we were, not knowing what we'd hear when we enquired after her from the nurse at the hospital, and how delighted we were to be told: gave birth last night ... but you mustn't talk to her too much ... I shan't soon forget that 'you mustn't talk to her too much', because that meant 'you can still talk to her' and might equally well have been 'you will never speak to her again.'"

422. weekly visiting hour BVG 210, 7/2/1882.

Context:
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "Ah, old chap, she had such a look on her face and she was so glad to see us, and because by chance we were there exactly 12 hours after it happened, while visitors are allowed only 1 hour a week."

423. "You can imagine" BVG 210, 7/2/1882.

Context:
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "Her mother and child and I went there together -- you can imagine how tense we were, not knowing what we'd hear when we enquired after her from the nurse at the hospital, and how delighted we were to be told: gave birth last night ... but you mustn't talk to her too much ... I shan't soon forget that 'you mustn't talk to her too much', because that meant 'you can still talk to her' and might equally well have been 'you will never speak to her again.'"

424. old maternity ward Luyendijk-Elshout, pp. 6-7: A new wing for obstetrics was opened in 1878, but it was for private patients. It was built as a separate wing, partly in response to better understanding of how to prevent bacterial infections, and partly in response to changing attitudes of the bourgeoisie toward hospitals in general. "For the first time, there was a space for patients with private rooms in this clinic, so that upper-class women could also be admitted on medical grounds." 425. the University Hospital In Dutch, the Ziekenhuis. 426. a bleak Dickensian Luyendijk-Elshout, p. 2: Luyendijk-Elshout notes that the maternity clinic "would have provided Charles Dickens or Victor Hugo with a picturesque tableau as the theme for a gloomy tale." 427. an autopsy helper Luyendijk-Elshout, p. 2. 428. its high ceiling Luyendijk-Elshout, p. 2. 429. and heavy drapes Luyendijk-Elshout, p. 2. 430. the tall windows Luyendijk-Elshout, p. 2. 296 431. walls on both sides Luyendijk-Elshout, p. 2. Luyendijk-Elshout is confusing on the arrangement of the beds in the ward, saying elsewhere: "Next to the bedsteads or the cribs, which stood in the middle of the hall, small iron cradles for the babies were placed." We have chosen the text version because it comports with Vincent's description of Sien "lying right by the window" (JLB 242, 7/2/1882). 432. two patients Luyendijk-Elshout, p. 2. 433. crib for dirty linens Luyendijk-Elshout, p. 2. 434. a baby crib Luyendijk-Elshout, p. 2. 435. "the nurses" Luyendijk-Elshout, pp. 2-3. 436. "The food was slop" This, at least, had not changed since the time of Luyendijk-Elshout's account. After Sien leaves for Leiden while Vincent is still in the hospital in The Hague, he writes: "But now I'm so sorry that I can't in turn give her a tonic in Leiden, which she'd certainly welcome, for what you get there is only weak fare" (JLB 239, 6/22/1882). 437. the kind of epidemics Luyendijk-Elshout, pp. 6-7: Luyendijk-Elshout reports a fever in 1873-74 in which "eleven percent of the new mothers died of puerperal fever." It was determined that the source of the fever was the surgical ward, which was just below the maternity ward. 438. filled with the "unmarried" Luyendijk-Elshout, pp. 3-4. 439. uterine infection "Psychological Study of Vincent Van Gogh," p. 12: Sien had fluor albus (leucorrhea), a vaginal discharge often caused by infection. 440. nervous exhaustion BVG 268a, 2/12/1883.

Context:
JLB 313, 2/12/1883: "2) shortly before the operation both had huge shocks to the mind through anxiety and tension and unrest, and their morale suffered almost more than a nervous system can bear."

441. four and half hours BVG 210, 7/2/1882: If Vincent is right about this, then the child was born on July 2, not July 1 as many sources have it.

Context:
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "Before that she had endured an enormous amount because the baby was stuck from 9 in the evening until half past one."

442. "stuck fast" BVG 210, 7/2/1882.

Context:
BVG 210, 7/2/1882: "Before that, she had suffered a tremendous amount because the child was stuck fast from 9 in the evening until half-past one."
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "Before that she had endured an enormous amount because the baby was stuck from 9 in the evening until half past one."

443. doctors in succession BVG 210, 7/2/1882: It seems likely that this is hyperbole. Vincent is probably counting the midwives and nurses that would have been in attendance.

Context:
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "By all accounts it was a critical situation. There were 5 professors present when it happened, and she was given chloroform."

444. with forceps BVG 210, 7/2/1882.

Context:
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "But what I can't get over is the child, in particular because although it was delivered with forceps it wasn't the least bit harmed, and lay in its cradle with a sort of air of worldly wisdom."

445. gave her chloroform BVG 210, 7/2/1882.

Context:
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "There were 5 professors present when it happened, and she was given chloroform."

446. never lost consciousness BVG 268a, 2/12/1883.

Context:
JLB 313, 2/12/1883: "Both have undergone a difficult operation and weren't entirely calm throughout that operation, despite the chloroform."

447. seven-and-a-half poundWilkie, p. 201: The recorded birth weight was 3.42 kilograms. The height was 53 cm. (21 in.). Both were considered normal, suggesting that the baby had been carried to full term. Hulsker uses this to denounce Wilkie and others who suggest that Vincent fathered the child. He argues that Sien therefore could not have been the prostitute whom Vincent describes visiting after his flight from the Strickers in November (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 140). However, Hulsker ignores the possibility that Vincent met Sien in The Hague when he was there in late August or September the previous year, nine to ten months before the birth. (See Ch. 17, n. 2.) 448. "shriveled" BVG 268a, 2/12/1883. This is another of the details that Vincent provides much later (in February 1883). For reasons of the moment, Vincent attributes all of these post-natal problems to a failure of Sien's confidence in Vincent's love for her. (The baby's problems were a result of bad mother's milk which was, of course, a result of insufficient love.) We think it more likely that these gritty details did not fit with Vincent's fantasy of the true sentiment of childbirth -- neither at the time nor a year later.

Context:
BVG 268a, 2/12/1883: "I found her looking as though she had withered ... and to make things complete, the baby was sick, too, and looked shrivelled."
JLB 313, 2/12/1883: "I found her looking withered... And in reaction the child ill as well and looking wizened." (Emphasis in original.)

449. suffering from jaundice BVG 268a, 2/12/1883. According to the hospital records, the baby also suffered "transient blenorrhoea [blennorrhea] neonatorum," an excessive discharge of mucus ("Psychological Study of Vincent Van Gogh," p. 12).

Context:
JLB 313, 2/12/1883: "In the child's case it was jaundice, according to the doctor, but the little eyes were also affected by something else and as if blind, and the woman, who did not have jaundice, looked withered, yellow, grey, I don't know what else" (emphasis in original).

450. still disoriented BVG 268a, 2/12/1883.

Context:
JLB 313, 2/12/1883: "I understood enough, though, to realize that she was delirious and upset."

451. with pain BVG 210, 7/2/1882.

Context:
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "And she's still in considerable pain."

452. "mortally weak" BVG 268a, 2/12/1883. Vincent later reports: "12 hours after the birth I was with her and found her utterly exhausted" (JLB 313, 2/12/1883).

Context:
BVG 268a, 2/12/1883: "When the woman was delivered of the child and the very difficult confinement was over, she was mortally weak."
JLB 313, 2/12/1883: "When the woman had given birth and had survived the extremely difficult delivery, she was terribly weak."

453. "it will take" BVG 284, 5/9/1883-5/10/1883: This is what Vincent reports the doctor told him.

Context:
BVG 284, 5/8/1883 or 5/9/1883: "As the professor who attended her confinement told me, it will take years before the woman has completely recovered her health. That is to say the nervous system remains very sensitive, and she possesses the changeability of women to a high degree."
JLB 342, 5/10/1883: "I was told by the professor who delivered her that the complete cure of my woman would take years. That is, the nervous system remains tremendously sensitive, for example, and she has that changeableness of women very strongly."

454. The baby's survival BVG 268a, 2/12/1883: Vincent does not mention this detail until much later. The baby's health is probably one of the reasons that both Sien and the baby remained in the hospital for more than a week after the delivery.

Context:
JLB 313, 2/12/1883: "The child continued ailing for a long time."

455. "a garden full" BVG 210, 7/2/1882.

Context:
BVG 210, 7/2/1882: "I was so happy to see her there, lying close to a window overlooking a garden full of sunshine and greenery, in a sort of drowsy state of exhaustion between sleeping and waking, and then she looked up and saw us all."
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "Theo, I was so happy when I saw her again, and she was lying right by the window with a view of the garden full of sun and greenery in a sort of exhausted drowse in between sleeping and being awake, and then she looked up and saw us all."

456. touching "drowsy state" BVG 210, 7/2/1882.

Context:
BVG 210, 7/2/1882: "I was so happy to see her there, lying close to a window overlooking a garden full of sunshine and greenery, in a sort of drowsy state of exhaustion between sleeping and waking, and then she looked up and saw us all."
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "Theo, I was so happy when I saw her again, and she was lying right by the window with a view of the garden full of sun and greenery in a sort of exhausted drowse in between sleeping and being awake, and then she looked up and saw us all."

457. suffering had "refined her" BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882.

Context:
BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "But there is more spirit and sensitivity in her; one can see that suffering and hard times have refined her."
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "Only there's more spirit and sensitivity in her; one can see that suffering and going through hard times have refined her."

458. given her "more spirit" BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882.

Context:
BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "But there is more spirit and sensitivity in her; one can see that suffering and hard times have refined her."
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "Only there's more spirit and sensitivity in her; one can see that suffering and going through hard times have refined her."

459. "worldly-wise air" BVG 210, 7/2/1882.

Context:
BVG 210, 7/2/1882: "But what I cannot marvel at enough is the child, because although it was delivered by forceps it is not injured in any way and just lay in its cradle with a sort of worldly-wise air."
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "But what I can't get over is the child, in particular because although it was delivered with forceps it wasn't the least bit harmed, and lay in its cradle with a sort of air of worldly wisdom."

460. that enchanted him BVG 210, 7/2/1882.

Context:
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "But what I can't get over is the child, in particular because although it was delivered with forceps it wasn't the least bit harmed, and lay in its cradle with a sort of air of worldly wisdom."

461. the pale mother BVG 268a, 2/12/1883. Much later, Vincent reports that when he first saw her in the maternity ward immediately after the birth, Sien "looked withered, yellow, grey, I don't know what else" (JLB 313, 2/12/1883).

Context:
JLB 313, 2/12/1883: "In the child's case it was jaundice, according to the doctor, but the little eyes were also affected by something else and as if blind, and the woman, who did not have jaundice, looked withered, yellow, grey, I don't know what else."

462. "When she saw" BVG 268a, 2/12/1883: This is a version of the event from almost a year later. But even the account written on the same day as the event tells a similarly unlikely story of miraculous emergence from serious medical crisis: "she looked up and saw us all. Ah, old chap, she had such a look on her face and she was so glad to see us ... exactly 12 hours after it happened ... And she was so cheered up and came to her senses in every respect in a second, and asked about everything." (JLB 242, 7/2/1882.) The only thing missing from the contemporaneous account is the explicit overlay of romantic resuscitation, although it is certainly suggested: "And she's still in considerable pain. But she forgot it all when she saw us." (ibid.) That these accounts are more fantasy than reality can be inferred from the fact that when Vincent returned to the hospital a week later, both Sien and the baby were still extremely sick. In his insistence on his romantic illusions, of course, Vincent determines that they relapsed in the interim because Sien lost confidence in his love for her (JLB 313, 2/12/1883).

Context:
JLB 313, 2/12/1883: "When she saw me she sat up and became as cheerful and lively as if nothing had happened."

463. "Her eyes" BVG 268a, 2/12/1883.

Context:
JLB 313, 2/12/1883: "Her pleasure in life and thankfulness radiated from her eyes."

464. "made me" BVG 210, 7/2/1882. We have used our own translation for the original Dutch: "Nu, broer, gij hebt het op uw geweten dat ik vandaag zo gelukkig ben, dat ik ervan geschreid heb." The sentence employs a common Dutch expression, "gij hebt het op uw geweten," which translates directly as "you have it on your conscience." In English, this phrase has an accusatory tone that it does not in Dutch, where it is used to express gratitude as well as disapproval. Bonger's translation ("it is your fault that I was so happy today that I cried for joy" [BVG 210, 7/2/1882]) not only shares this problem, but also appears to substitute a sentimental cliché for a genuine display of emotion. Therefore, we prefer to translate the sentence, "Now, brother, today you made me so happy that I cried." On this issue, JLB offer: "Well brother, you have it on your conscience that I'm so happy today that it made me cry" (JLB 242, 7/2/1882).

Context:
BVG 210, 7/2/1882: "Well, brother, you are to blame for my being so happy today that it made me cry."
JLB 242, 7/2/1882: "Well brother, you have it on your conscience that I'm so happy today that it made me cry."

465. "a household" BVG 212, 7/6/1882.

Context:
BVG 212, 7/6/1882: "But to try to kill that feeling -- that strong wish to have a household of my own -- would be suicide."
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "But if I were to snuff out this feeling, and the strength to have my own household, that would be suicide" (emphasis in original).

466. he had long coveted BVG 195, 5/1/1882. Vincent had first tried to win Theo's agreement to the move in early May, right before revealing his affair with Sien (JLB 222, 5/1/1882).

Context:
JLB 222, 5/1/1882: "All the more reason why I'm thinking of moving next door. There's an upstairs flat like this: [sketch]."

297 467. frenzy of decorating He oversaw the finishing of the recently-plastered downstairs rooms (JLB 243, 7/4/1882): choosing wallpaper (JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882), polishing the floor (JLB 243, 7/4/1882), and arranging the furniture. Too sore from his treatments to do anything strenuous, he hired men to move the contents of the old apartment. 468. he filled it BVG 212, 7/6/1882.

Context:
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "Now the woman has given birth, I've been ill for four weeks -- and still not better -- despite all that the place is clean and cheerful and bright and tidy, and I have a large part of my furniture, bedding and painting materials."

469. including a wicker BVG 213, 7/6/1882.

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "Then the little living room with a table, some kitchen chairs, a paraffin stove, a big wicker armchair for the woman in the little corner by the window overlooking the yard and meadows familiar to you from the drawing, and next to it a small iron cradle with a green coverlet."

470. easy chair BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882.

Context:
BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "It was indeed a delightful homecoming, and Sien was in high spirits about everything, especially about the cradle, about the easy chair, about everything."
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "It really was a lovely homecoming, and Sien was in high spirits over everything, especially over the cradle, over her wicker chair, over everything."

471. a big bedstead BVG 213, 7/6/1882.

Context:
BVG 213, 7/6/1882: "And upstairs in the large attic, a big bedstead for the two of us and my old one for the child, with all the bedding in good order."
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "And upstairs in the large attic a big bedstead for her and me, and my old one for the child with all the bedding in good order."

472. an iron cradle BVG 213, 7/6/1882. Vincent reports buying the cradle at a "junk shop" (JLB 307, 2/4/1883). Less romantically, he also bought "a close-stool" (JLB 244, 7/6/1882; emphasis in original).

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "Then the little living room with a table, some kitchen chairs, a paraffin stove, a big wicker armchair for the woman in the little corner by the window overlooking the yard and meadows familiar to you from the drawing, and next to it a small iron cradle with a green coverlet."

473. flowers for the window BVG 213, 7/6/1882.

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "Now in the small kitchen I have the very basic necessities, but such that if the woman recovers before me she can find all the essentials and cook something in 10 minutes, in short so that she can see that she has been thought about a great deal, and she will enter a house with flowers in the window where she will sit."

474. "It cost what" BVG 212, 7/6/1882: We have slightly reordered Bonger's translation.

Context:
BVG 212, 7/6/1882: " It has cost what it has cost -- indeed, I shall not minimize it -- but then your money has not been thrown away."
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: " It has cost what it cost, to be sure I won't underestimate it, but your money hasn't gone down the drain."

475. the attic bedroom BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882.

Context:
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "I began this letter yesterday evening and I can now tell you that we, namely the woman and the two children and I, spent the night in the big attic."

476. share with Sien BVG 213, 7/6/1882.

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "And upstairs in the large attic a big bedstead for her and me, and my old one for the child with all the bedding in good order."

477. stuffed it himself BVG 213, 7/6/1882: Sien's mother helped in this project.

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "The most difficult thing was the bedding -- all made or altered by us -- bought straw, bought eel-grass, ticking &c. and stuffed the beds ourselves in the attic."

478. "like a comfortable barge" BVG 222, 8/5/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 222, 8/5/1882: "Speaking about the village-policeman-style -- I myself feel less like a policeman than like a kind of Delft bargeman, for instance, and I have no objection to making my studio look like a kind of comfortable barge."
JLB 253, 8/5/1882: "On the subject of the village constable style -- I feel less like a village constable than like a Delft bargee, for example, and I don't at all object to my place being like a cosy tow barge."

479. "I love my studio" BVG 271, 3/3/1883.

Context:
JLB 323, 3/3/1883: "I have a love for the studio such as a bargee would have for his boat."

480. most precious printsBVG 213, 7/6/1882. We are assuming that the work by Frank Holl that he mentions was The Foundling, which Vincent describes a few months later in a letter to Van Rappard (JLB 307, 2/4/1883). (See Ch. 17, n. 148.)

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "I've hung up other prints there as well, and all very beautiful: Christus Consolator by Scheffer, a photo after [George] Boughton, The sower and The diggers by Millet, The bush by Ruisdael, and splendid, big wood engravings by [Hubert] Herkomer and Frank Hall [sic] and The paupers' pew by [Charles] Degroux."

481. Reading the Bible BVG 213, 7/6/1882. Vincent does not give the title, but this is clearly the image that he lists, names, and describes seven years earlier in the throes of his religious ardor in Paris: "Rembrandt Reading the Bible (a large, old Dutch room, (in the evening, a candle on the table) in which a young mother sits beside her child's cradle reading the Bible; an old woman listens, it's something that recalls: Verily I say unto you, 'for where 2 or 3 are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them,' it's an old copper engraving, as large as 'The bush,' superb)." (JLB 37, 7/6/1875.) He mentions it again three years later when another work ("The Garden of Olives" by Carlo Dolci brings it to mind: "There's something Rembrandtesque about it, saw it recently. You no doubt know the large, rough etching of the same subject after Rembrandt, being the pendant of the other, Reading the Bible, with those two women and the cradle." (JLB 148, 11/13/1878-11/15/1878 or 11/16/1878.) We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "So I've hung the big etching after Rembrandt above it -- those two women beside the cradle, one reading from the Bible by the light of a candle, while the great cast shadows put the whole room in deep chiaroscuro."

482. "Now, thank God" BVG 213, 7/6/1882.

Context:
BVG 213, 7/6/1882: "And the result is now, thank God, that this little nest is ready for her after all her pain."
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "And now, thank God, the outcome is that the little nest is ready for her after all her pain."

483. its strained moorings BVG 212, 7/6/1882.

Context:
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "... now if you come you won't find me dejected or melancholy, but you'll enter a setting with which I believe you'll be satisfied, or at least like. A young studio, a still young, fully functioning household."

484. On a stormy night BVG 213, 7/6/1882. In a letter that same night, Vincent sets the scene like a Victorian novel: "It's so silent and peaceful now here in the studio -- it's already late -- but outside a gale is blowing and it's raining -- that makes the calm inside all the greater" (JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882). 485. especially, "gripped" BVG 213, 7/6/1882.

Context:
BVG 213, 7/6/1882: "This last piece of furniture is something I cannot look at without emotion -- because a man is gripped by a strong and powerful emotion when he sits down next to the woman he loves with a baby in the cradle beside them."
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "I can't look at the last piece of furniture without emotion, for it's a strong and powerful emotion that grips a person when one has sat beside the woman one loves with a child in the cradle near her."

486. "I cannot look" BVG 213, 7/6/1882.

Context:
BVG 213, 7/6/1882: "This last piece of furniture is something I cannot look at without emotion -- because a man is gripped by a strong and powerful emotion when he sits down next to the woman he loves with a baby in the cradle beside them."
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: " I can't look at the last piece of furniture without emotion, for it's a strong and powerful emotion that grips a person when one has sat beside the woman one loves with a child in the cradle near her."

487. "sitting down" BVG 213, 7/6/1882: We have altered the original from the third person to the first person. Even at this highly emotional moment, Vincent initially distances himself from this vision of domestic bliss: "it's a strong and powerful emotion that grips a person when one has sat beside the woman one loves with a child in the cradle near her" (JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882). But there is no doubt whom he is seeing, for in the very next sentence he transposes the image onto his recent bedside reunion with Sien: "And even if it was a hospital where she lay and I sat with her, it's always that eternal poetry of Christmas night with the baby in the manger" (ibid.). A few weeks later, he explicitly puts himself into the same image: "But we felt sufficiently that her life and my life were one when we saw each other again beside the baby's cradle in the hospital" (JLB 247, 7/18/1882).

Context:
BVG 213, 7/6/1882: "This last piece of furniture is something I cannot look at without emotion -- because a man is gripped by a strong and powerful emotion when he sits down next to the woman he loves with a baby in the cradle beside them."
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "I can't look at the last piece of furniture without emotion, for it's a strong and powerful emotion that grips a person when one has sat beside the woman one loves with a child in the cradle near her."

488. treasured images BVG 213, 7/6/1882.

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "And even if it was a hospital where she lay and I sat with her, it's always that eternal poetry of Christmas night with the baby in the manger as the old Dutch painters conceived of it, and Millet and Breton -- that light in the darkness -- a brightness in the midst of a dark night."

489. of motherhood Michelet, p. 58: Vincent had learned this reverence for the maternal bond at least partly from Michelet's La femme: "As soon as the child sees the light, and sees itself in the maternal eye, it reflects, instinctively returns the look of love; and from that moment the most profound and sweetest mystery of life has been accomplished between those two." (820) 490. "eternal poetry" BVG 213, 7/6/1882.

Context:
BVG 213, 7/6/1882: "And although it was a hospital that she lay and I sat next to her -- it is always that eternal poetry of Christmas night with the infant in the stable, as the old Dutch painters conceived it, and Millet and Breton -- a light in the darkness, a brightness in the middle of a dark night."
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "And even if it was a hospital where she lay and I sat with her, it's always that eternal poetry of Christmas night with the baby in the manger as the old Dutch painters conceived of it, and Millet and Breton -- that light in the darkness -- a brightness in the midst of a dark night."

491. "a light in the darkness" BVG 213, 7/6/1882.

Context:
BVG 213, 7/6/1882: "And although it was a hospital that she lay and I sat next to her -- it is always that eternal poetry of Christmas night with the infant in the stable, as the old Dutch painters conceived it, and Millet and Breton -- a light in the darkness, a brightness in the middle of a dark night."
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "And even if it was a hospital where she lay and I sat with her, it's always that eternal poetry of Christmas night with the baby in the manger as the old Dutch painters conceived of it, and Millet and Breton -- that light in the darkness -- a brightness in the midst of a dark night."

492. "Do you think" BVG 213, 7/6/1882.

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "Do you believe Pa would remain cool and still object -- in front of a cradle?"

298 493. telegraphed his displeasure This was not the only way that Theo signaled his displeasure. After Vincent's dramatic announcement in May ("People suspect me of something ..."), Theo tortured his brother with silence (JLB 224, 5/7/1882). "Now I hope that you won't blame me for being a little worried," Vincent ventured after two weeks and two unanswered letters (JLB 224, 5/7/1882 and JLB 225, 5/10/1882), "because you haven't given me answers to various things" (JLB 226, 5/13/1882). He tried to lure his brother into a debate by boldly advertising his worst-case anxieties: "I don't believe that you'll abandon me altogether [because of Sien], or any other reason of etiquette or whatever. But is it any wonder that after what happened with Mauve and H.G.T. I sometimes think with a certain melancholy, perhaps it's happened with him as well?" (ibid.) 494. repeated promptings BVG 195, 5/1/1882. Despite the multiple requests for comment contained in this short passage, there is no indication that Theo responded until the end of May. At that time, apparently, Theo wrote Vincent that he showed Sorrow (F 1655 JH 259) to the Norwegian artist Hans Heyerdahl (1857-1913) (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882). Yet, when Vincent acknowledges this, he does not make any mention of Theo's reaction or, in fact, Heyerdahl's. (In a letter in July, Vincent writes: "In the winter, for example, you heard better things about me from Heyerdahl than, for example, Tersteeg's opinion of my work" [JLB 248, 7/19/1882], but this may not refer to "Sorrow," which Vincent sent in mid-April; and even if it does, it hardly constitutes ringing praise, given Tersteeg's devastating critiques.) One can infer that Heyerdahl's reaction was at least not very positive because Vincent immediately suggests that Theo get another opinion: "Heyerdahl has now seen Sorrow, but I would like the latest three drawings to be seen by a draughtsman, for example Henri Pille" (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882; emphasis in original). As of July, it still appears that Theo has withheld any firm opinion of the drawing. In asking Theo to return another drawing, Vincent writes, still prompting: "bring some when you come, together with those of my sketches that you have but don't want to keep. Of course I hope that you'll definitely keep Sorrow and the best of them, and the large Sorrow." (JLB 243, 7/4/1882.)

Context:
JLB 222, 5/1/1882: "And if I've sent you another couple, since you sent back the old studies as I asked you to do (the Laan van Meerdervoort and Sorrow), it's to give you a sign that I can make more of the same if you'd like. If you say they aren't ready, I'll go on working before sending more, because what I sent isn't something accidental: what I can do, I can do. I must go on working for a time to make even more progress. But I want to say this: if the last batch I sent proves to have anything you could begin showing to people, I could start to send you things as soon as I have something."

495. in mid-May BVG 199, 5/16/1882.

Context:
JLB 229, 5/18/1882: "I hadn't expected the gentle tone of your letter of 13 May."

496. with fifty francs enclosed BVG 193, 5/14/1882.

Context:
JLB 228, 5/16/1882: "And first of all thank you sincerely for the 50 francs you enclosed" (emphasis in original).

497. "tricked him" BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: We have changed the first person to the third person in the quotation.

Context:
BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Now I am glad that you have given me your frank opinion of Sien, namely that she tricked me and that I allowed myself be taken in."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Now, I'm glad you've told me frankly what you think about Sien, namely that she intrigued and that I allowed myself to be fooled by her."

498. he had "allowed himself"BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882. (See Ch. 17, n. 497.) In rebuttal to this accusation, Vincent gives an example from his own past that does not match up with any known incidents: "I remember once shutting the door so firmly in the face of a girl who wanted to try something similar that I rather doubt that I'm likely to be the victim of a crude intrigue." In truth, this does not sound like something Vincent would do. With his strong libido and limited wooing assets, he was hardly inclined to slam doors in women's faces. We have changed the quotation from the first person to the third person.

Context:
BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Now I am glad that you have given me your frank opinion of Sien, namely that she tricked me and that I allowed myself be taken in."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Now, I'm glad you've told me frankly what you think about Sien, namely that she intrigued and that I allowed myself to be fooled by her."

499. "give her up" BVG 193, 5/14/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 193, 5/14/1882: "If I reply to your letter: Yes, Theo, you are right, I will give up Christien."
JLB 228, 5/16/1882: "If I reply to your letter: Yes, Theo, you're right, I'll give up Chistien."

500. "Pay her off" BVG 198, 5/14/1882. (We have slightly altered the translation.) Vincent compares an argument in Theo's letter to an argument that had supposedly been made by the man who made Sien pregnant: "The person who is the father of Christien's child reasoned exactly in the spirit of your letter, Theo, and in my view utterly wrongly. He was very friendly to her but did not marry her, even when she was pregnant by him, for the sake of, so he said, his position and his family &c. Christien was young at the time and met him after her father's death, didn't know then what she knows now, and when that person died she was left alone with her child -- deserted -- with nothing. She had to take to the streets unwillingly, became ill, ended up in hospital in all sorts of misfortune ... The behaviour of that person was guilty before God, yet in the eyes of the world he kept his position -- 'he had paid her.'" (JLB 227, 5/14/1882 or 5/15/1882.) The quotation marks in Vincent's original indicate to us that this phrase, or one much like it, appeared in Theo's letter. It should be noted here that Vincent could know of this previous argument only from Sien. Given how little of Sien's story about her pregnancy comports with the known facts, Vincent's account of his predecessor in interest should be taken with a grain of salt. Both Sien and Vincent had reasons to manufacture and/or embellish it.

Context:
BVG 198, 5/14/1882: "That man's behaviour made him guilty before God, although in the eyes of the world he had kept up his position, 'had paid her off.'"
JLB 227, JLB 227, 5/14/1882 or 5/15/1882: "The behaviour of that person was guilty before God, yet in the eyes of the world he kept his position -- 'he had paid her.'"

501. give her money BVG 198, 5/14/1882. This is another argument that can be inferred from Vincent's statement that "the father of Christien's child reasoned exactly in the spirit of your letter" (JLB 227, 5/14/1882 or 5/15/1882). Vincent's predecessor, according to Vincent's story (from Sien), did support her ("he was very friendly") but then died, leaving her "with nothing" (ibid.). 502. set her up in his willBVG 198, 5/14/1882. Theo's letters about Sien apparently dealt at some length with the issue of inheritances. Vincent writes in early June: "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." (JLB 235, 6/3/1882; emphasis in original.) This is a curious exchange in a number of ways. Theo appears to have suggested that, by marrying Sien, Vincent would jeopardize his inheritance. Vincent seems puzzled by this, although his puzzlement is hard to credit. Surely he doesn't think that Theo thinks their parents have money (he knows better and he certainly knows that Theo knows better). And Vincent (and Theo) must have long since realized that Vincent stood in line to inherit from Uncle Cent until he squandered that right a decade earlier in The Hague, and then again in Amsterdam. The most interesting insight the passage affords is into how Theo's mind works -- that inheritance is clearly something that he thinks about in making key decisions. Unlike Vincent, he is still a likely heir to Uncle Cent.

Context:
BVG 198, 5/14/1882: "That man's behaviour made him guilty before God, although in the eyes of the world he had kept up his position, 'had paid her off.'"
JLB 227, 5/14/1882 or 5/15/1882: "The behaviour of that person was guilty before God, yet in the eyes of the world he kept his position -- 'he had paid her.'"

503. should he marry her BVG 198, 5/14/1882.

Context:
JLB 227, 5/14/1882 or 5/15/1882: Now, you say that you don't see what there is between Christien and me that makes it necessary for me to marry her.

504. brother against "obstinacy" BVG 198, 5/14/1882: Vincent puts these words in quotations in his response. We assume this must indicate that they were quoted directly from Theo's letter.

Context:
BVG 198, 5/14/1882: "That is not going to be said about me, and you will realize by now that it isn't 'obstinacy' on my part or 'wantonly having it my own way,' but that I must stand by Sien, that I have pledged her my troth and that I shall keep my pledge."
JLB 227, 5/14/1882 or 5/15/1882: "That shall not be said of me, and you'll see that it isn't 'pigheadedness' or 'recklessly wanting to get my own way' on my part, but because I stand before Christien and I've promised her my loyalty and will remain loyal."

505. "[Do not] wantonly insist" BVG 198, 5/14/1882. Because Vincent puts this phrase in quotation marks -- presumably because it is taken from Theo's letter -- we have returned the pronouns to the appropriate person: from "recklessly wanting to get my own way" to "recklessly wanting to get your own way" (JLB 227, 5/14/1882 or 5/15/1882).

Context:
BVG 198, 5/14/1882: "That is not going to be said about me, and you will realize by now that it isn't "obstinacy" on my part or "wantonly having it my own way," but that I must stand by Sien, that I have pledged her my troth and that I shall keep my pledge."
JLB 227, 5/14/1882 or 5/15/1882: "That shall not be said of me, and you'll see that it isn't 'pigheadedness' or 'recklessly wanting to get my own way' on my part, but because I stand before Christien and I've promised her my loyalty and will remain loyal."

506. "It is my" BVG 199, 5/16/1882.

Context:
BVG 199, 5/16/1882: "Only I would not be sincere if I said anything to you other than that it is my decided intention to marry her as soon as possible."
JLB 229, 5/18/1882: "It's just that I wouldn't be honest if I said anything to you other than: it's my firm intention to marry her as soon as possible."

507. argument on argument BVG 197, 5/12/1882-5/13/1882. The following three short paragraphs contain no less than twelve distinct arguments: "I don't believe you'll think ill of me for being with Christien. I don't believe that you'll abandon me altogether for that or any other reason of etiquette or whatever. But is it any wonder that after what happened with Mauve and H.G.T. I sometimes think with a certain melancholy, perhaps it's happened with him as well? … At any rate, I'm very much looking forward to a letter from you, though I know that you're doubtless very busy and that it hasn't been so very long since you last wrote. Perhaps you'll experience it yourself sooner or later, but during days in which one is one with a pregnant woman, so to speak, there's so much to worry about that 24 hours is sometimes a week and a week seems longer than a month. And that's why I've written to you so often these last few days, as long as I have no reply. I wrote to you about my plan to rent the house next door as being more suitable than this one, which appears capable of being blown apart &c. But after all, you know very well that I don't ask arrogantly for this or that. … I only hope that you'll continue to be what you were to me, I don't think I've lowered or dishonoured myself by doing what I did, although some will perhaps think so. I feel that my work lies in the heart of the people, that I must keep close to the ground, that I must delve deeply into life and must get ahead by coping with great cares and difficulties." (JLB 226, 5/13/1882; emphasis added.) The twelve italicized phrases make the following arguments:

(1) "Please don't abandon me!"
(2) "You don't want to be a slave to convention."

(3) "I am in a particularly vulnerable state right now because of Tersteeg and Mauve."

(4) " Et tu, Theo?"

(5) "Your business is so important that this must seem trivial" (said archly to invite contradiction).

(6) "Don't be too quick to judge -- it could happen to you." (There but for the grace of God ...)

(7) "You wouldn't believe how hard this is for me."

(8) "I'm not demanding anything."

(9) "I hope this won't undermine our relationship."

(10) "Don't be one of those small-minded conventional people that we both disparage."

(11) "I'm doing this for my art."

(12) "This will be a learning experience that builds character."

508. "I feel a great calm" BVG 212, 7/6/1882.

Context:
BVG 212, 7/6/1882: "At the same time, however, I feel a great calm and brightness and cheerfulness at the thought of her and the straight path lying before me"
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "At the same time, though, I feel a great calm and clarity and cheerfulness at the thought of her and of the straight path lying before me."

509. pledges of economy BVG 216, 7/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "Because of the love between us, this making do is a joy, so to speak, rather than a burden for her and me."

510. "I can't tell" BVG 202, 5/27/1882.

Context:
BVG 202, 5/27/1882: "She is so willing to help me in everything -- I can't tell you how useful she is to me."
JLB 231, 5/27/1882: "She's so willing to help in everything that I can't tell you how useful she is to me."

511. "First and foremost" BVG 198, 5/14/1882. Vincent admitted that the motto of his Kee Vos campaign, "She and no other" had died in Amsterdam: "You see, to me that was just crass, especially when they spoke of my coercion, and I felt that the things they told me were meant to beat me to death, and that my 'she and no other' was beaten to death" (JLB 228, 5/16/1882). But it had been replaced by a new motto: "What comes first with me is this. I do not want to deceive or abandon any woman. If a woman refuses to have anything to do with me, like Kee Vos -- I don't press her, however strong my feelings may be -- then I turn back with desolation in the heart as soon as my 'she and no other' is opposed by her 'certainly not him.' I do not want to coerce and I do not want to abandon." (JLB 227, 5/15/1882; emphasis added.)

Caught up in the heat of his argument, Vincent says things that are either not remotely true or will only be true temporarily. This is perhaps the most startling example and certainly must have caused Theo's eyes to roll. In fact, Vincent did everything within his power to force Kee into a relationship -- and would have done more, no doubt, if her family had let him near her. It should also be noted that Vincent described his feelings for Kee Vos very differently less than two weeks before this. At that time (early May), he clearly implied that his love for her had not been "beaten to death"; that he was still carrying a torch for her: "I was in fact thinking of another woman for whom my heart beats" (JLB 224, 5/7/1882).

Context:
BVG 198, 5/14/1882: "What comes first and foremost with me is this: I will not deceive or forsake a woman."
JLB 227, 5/14/1882 or 5/15/1882: "What comes first with me is this. I DO NOT WANT TO DECEIVE OR ABANDON ANY WOMAN." (Emphasis in original.)

512. "l'opinion publique" BVG 198, 5/14/1882.

Context:
BVG 198, 5/14/1882: "But when it comes to important, serious maters one must act, not in accordance with l'opinion publique, not according to one's own passions, but following the ABC which is the basis of all morality: 'Love thy neighbour as thyself.' Act in a way you can justify before God. Do the right thing and act loyally."
JLB 227, 5/14/1882 or 5/15/1882: "But in important, serious matters one shouldn't let one's actions be guided by public opinion or by one's own passions. One must stick to the A.B.C. that is the foundation of all morality, 'love thy neighbour as thyself.' Act in a way that you can account for to God. Do right and act loyally."

513. "the only means" BVG 198, 5/14/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 198, 5/14/1882: "We want there to be nothing false in our position and consider marriage the only radical means of stopping the world talking and of seeing to it that we are not … reproached with an illicit relationship."
JLB 227, 5/14/1882 or 5/15/1882: "We don't want to have anything false in our position, and believe that marrying is the only effective way of silencing the world and ensuring that people can't accuse us of living together illicitly."

514. "reproached with" BVG 198, 5/14/1882.

Context:
BVG 198, 5/14/1882: "We want there to be nothing false in our position and consider marriage the only radical means of stopping the world talking and of seeing to it that we are not ... reproached with an illicit relationship."
JLB 227, 5/14/1882 OR 5/15/1882: "We don't want to have anything false in our position, and believe that marrying is the only effective way of silencing the world and ensuring that people can't accuse us of living together illicitly."

515. "It is God's will" BVG 213, 7/6/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 213, 7/6/1882: "I believe in a God, and that it is His will that man does not live alone but with a wife and child, if everything is to be normal."
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "I believe in a God and that it is his will that man should not live alone but with a woman and with a child, if everything is to be normal."

516. safe, dependable sex BVG 212, 7/6/1882: Because the only two viable sexual outlets for unmarried men were prostitution and masturbation -- the latter of which was strictly forbidden during the nineteenth century -- Vincent portrayed marriage as a necessary solution for the two libidinous Van Gogh boys.

Context:
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "For I'm quite sure that neither of us is cut out to be celibate."

Vincent had already told Theo, "if you must [withdraw your support] -- then in God's name 'off with my head.' But preferably not, I need it for drawing." (JLB 227, 5/14/1882 or 5/15/1882; emphasis in original.) Elsewhere, Vincent professes his resignation in melodramatic terms: "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." (JLB 228, 5/16/1882.)

"Do I deserve to be left in the lurch, Vincent wrote, because I helped a pregnant woman and don't want to send her back onto the streets? We've promised to be loyal to each other; is that not allowed? Is death the punishment for that???" (BVG 198, 5/14/1882.) "Now I face Christien and reason like this: how would I feel if someone first helped me and then left me in the lurch? Wouldn't I think ... the person who behaves like that would have done better to leave me alone if he couldn't go on to the end as he had begun. In fact he deceived me." (JLB 227, 5/14/1882 OR 5/15/1882.) The obvious parallel to Theo's treatment of Vincent was undoubtedly intentional, and this later use may have been specifically intended to resonate with the earlier application: Theo took on an obligation by supporting Vincent's artistic ambitions just as Vincent took on an obligation by helping Sien to get off the street. To abdicate either one would turn the earlier assistance into a "deception." The harshness of the critique probably accounts for the indirection of the expression.

"If I know in advance that you're definitely going to withdraw your help," Vincent wrote," then I'm powerless; with the best will in the world, my hand is paralyzed -- yes, it will be wretched enough, and then it is truly terrible." (JLB 227, 5/14/1882 OR 5/15/1882.) Vincent goes on at some length in this bleak vision: "If I know in advance that you're definitely going to withdraw your help, then I'm powerless; with the best will in the world, my hand is paralyzed -- yes, it will be wretched enough, and then it is truly terrible. What good would that be to you or anyone else? -- I would despair and Christien and the child would perish. You may think I'm exaggerating if I believe you could do a thing like that, but 'such things happen.' If this awful fate must strike me ..." (JLB 227, 5/14/1882 OR 5/15/1882.) Finally, with far less conviction, he reiterates his brave resignation: "... then let it strike me" (ibid.).

517. "She would die" BVG 199, 5/16/1882.

Context:
BVG 199, 5/16/1882: "This time he asked her many questions about whom she was living with, and from what he said about it, I now know for sure what I had guessed -- that she would die if she had to walk the streets again, and when I met her this winter it was only just in time to give her the help she needed."
JLB 229, 5/18/1882: "This time he asked her at length about who she was with, and because of what he said about that I'm now quite certain of what I thought before: that she'd collapse if she had to go back onto the streets, and that it was high time help came last winter when I met her."

518. "save Sien's life" BVG 217, 7/19/1882.

Context:
BVG 217, 7/19/1882: "What I want is to save Sien's life and that of her two children."
JLB 248, 7/19/1882: "What I want is to preserve the lives of Sien and her two children."

519. "falling back" BVG 217, 7/19/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 217, 7/19/1882: "I do not want her to fall back into that terrible state of illness and misery in which I found her, and from which she is saved for the present."
JLB 248, 7/19/1882: "I don't want her to sink back into that terrible state of illness and misery in which I found her and from which she has been rescued for the time being."

520. image with reports from BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: Vincent keeps Theo meticulously informed of Sien's recovery regimen as a way of trying to ensure that he does not cut off funding. Vincent also purports to relate his detailed conversations with her doctor in Leiden: " repeatedly he came back to whether she was really with me permanently -- whether I wouldn't leave her in the lurch -- and when she continued to reassure him, even when he said that she was just fooling him, he ended by saying, well, if you've really got your man for good, you've gained a great deal. He kept hammering on the point that she must have a domestic, regular and quiet life." (JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882; emphasis in original.) Reports like these serve Vincent's arguments so neatly it is difficult to credit them.

Context:
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "That she must be out of doors often, and do plenty of walking as soon as she's strong enough -- breathe in lots of air and freshness. ... As to food, he told her what she must eat and what isn't good for her. ... She must wash often with cold water and brandy, and regularly take a hot bath every week. ... She must avoid emotions that make her nervous: anxiety, tension, agitation."

521. "a prolapse" BVG 216, 7/19/1882. By "least emotion," Vincent clearly means to indicate either the financial disruption caused by Theo cutting off his support, or the emotional disruption that would ensue if Vincent were to cancel his marriage proposal. As a medical analysis, of course, this is nonsense. "Prolapse" refers to the shifting of the uterus into an abnormally low position in the abdominal cavity and is typically caused by weak muscles, often as a result of repeated term pregnancies. It can interfere with conception and intensify the pain of childbirth, but it is not an acute condition and cannot be triggered by emotional shocks.

Context:
BVG 216, 7/19/1882: "Of course I will, but you must admit that now is a very inopportune moment, as they are in the bustle of moving at home, and as the woman's condition is such that the least emotion might bring about a prolapse of the womb which might be incurable."
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "... of course -- but now you must admit that this is hardly a suitable moment, just when they're in the middle of moving at home and the woman is in such a state that the least emotion could cause a prolapse of the womb that might never be put right."

299 522. "Her first remedy" BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882.

Context:
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "Her principal remedy, her most important restorative, was having a home; he kept coming back to that."

523. "would be murder"BVG 216, 7/19/1882. (See Ch. 17, n. 521.) Elsewhere in the same letter, Vincent ratchets down the rhetoric, but only slightly: "Causing the woman to become agitated is to give her a hard blow. I can't say this often enough. She is well, but weak and highly sensitive. The slightest thing can spoil her milk and lead to far worse." (JLB 247, 7/18/1882; emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 216, 7/19/1882: "To cause her any anxiety, strain or nervousness now would be murder."
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "Making her feel fearful, anxious and nervous now is murder."

524. heartbreaking tableau BVG 193, 5/14/1882.

Context:
JLB 228, 5/16/1882: "As for her mother and her child, the latter removes her stain; I have respect for a woman who is a mother and I don't enquire into her past."

525. "so quiet, so delicate" BVG 216, 7/19/1882. The reference is to the French artist Francois Nicolas Auguste Feyen-Perrin.

Context:
BVG 216, 7/19/1882: "I must tell you that when she is calm, Sien becomes at once a little mother, so quiet, so delicate, so touching, just like an etching or drawing or painting by Feyen-Perrin."
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "You know, Sien, when she's calm, has become so quiet, so fine, so touching a mother, like an etching or drawing or painting by Feyen-Perrin."

526. "My profession allows" BVG 200, 5/23/1882. Vincent revisits this old argument with a new twist: "I couldn't [marry her] if I had a different kind of work" (JLB 230, 5/23/1882). If he were a businessman like Theo, of course, he could never "lower" himself (JLB 228, 5/16/1882) to marry a "woman of the people" (JLB 244, 7/6/1882). Vincent draws the distinction between himself and his brother (vis-a-vis an appropriate wife) very explicitly: "You have since adapted to life in another class where you are now firmly established, so that for you it wouldn't again be an illusion if you wanted to marry a girl from your class. ... In my opinion, your way is definitely not to take a woman of the people ... For me, though, it's the other way round: the illusion." (JLB 244, 7/6/1882; emphasis in original.) Vincent illustrates this distinction by saying that Theo could marry a "woman from the same kind of class" such as Kee Vos; whereas, for Vincent, the "illusion was Kee Vos" (ibid.).

By framing the issue this way, Vincent transforms his determination to marry Sien into a much larger determination about what status he aspires to in life. "This step [marrying Sien] it's proof that I'm taking root close to the ground. I don't think I'd do well to strive for a higher station or to change much in my character." (JLB 226, 5/13/1882.) Theo may have disarmed this argument early when he wrote to Vincent in mid-May: "One would have to be narrow-minded or have a misplaced sense of guilt to put one class absolutely above another" (JLB 227, 5/14/1882 OR 5/15/1882). Commentators have taken this as evidence that Theo did not object to Vincent marrying beneath his class, but it is far from dispositive on the issue of how Theo felt about Vincent marrying a prostitute (e.g., Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 124). Vincent has taken it out of its context in Theo's letter and it could have been followed by paragraphs of exceptions and qualifications -- as Vincent's similarly sweeping declarations often were. In any case, Vincent did not stop making apologies for "lowering" himself by marrying Sien, or claiming that marrying her befitted his type. Ultimately, his arguments constitute a ringing affirmation of the social class structure. Although Vincent is often portrayed as a "modern" (i.e., socialist) thinker, his belief in types overruled any political belief system. "If I don't marry her, it would have been kinder of me not to have taken any interest in her. Yet through this step a gulf opens; I then 'marry beneath my station,' as they say, as decisively as I possibly can, but that is not forbidden and not bad, even if the world calls it wrong." (JLB 228, 5/16/1882.)

Context:
BVG 200, 5/23/1882: " My profession allows me to undertake this marriage -- I could not do it if I had another position."
JLB 230, 5/23/1882: " It's because of my occupation that I dare do this; I couldn't do it if I had a different kind of work."

527. "like real Bohemians"BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882. This argument is of a piece with Vincent's claim that Sien would make a perfect artist's wife -- certainly much better suited to the "Bohemian" life of a modern artist than the proper, bourgeois Kee Vos (see Ch. 17, n. 528). Both arguments seemed to have been triggered by a comment Theo made expressing wonderment that Vincent could truly love another woman so soon after declaring "she and no other" about Kee Vos. Vincent opens his response with a patronizing reference to Theo's lack of understanding of matters of the heart (hardly a credible accusation given Theo's history): "there are aspects of life that are less developed in you than your understanding of business, about which I freely grant that you're far better informed than I, and shan't lightly dare to say to you this or that isn't so. On the contrary, especially when you explain a little to me, I often feel that your grasp of things is better than mine. But on the other hand, when it comes to love -- I'm sometimes astonished by your views." (JLB 228, 5/16/1882.)

Then, after giving a detailed reprise of the events in Amsterdam (his most exhaustive account yet; see Ch. 17, n. 529), Vincent writes: "Theo, you say that if I had truly loved K[ee] V[os]. I wouldn't have done that [i.e., taken up with Sien]." (ibid.) Vincent also turns Theo's objection on its ear by arguing that it is Kee's fault that he now can only love Sien ("a love like mine for Sien is the only kind I'm capable of, especially after being disappointed in that first passion" [JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882]), and in general, expends much energy and ink portraying himself as a spurned lover, as in this passage: "I was in fact thinking of another woman [Kee Vos] for whom my heart beats -- but she was far away and didn't want to see me, and this one -- there she was, ill, pregnant, hungry -- in the winter" (JLB 224, 5/7/1882). Always sympathetic, Hulsker accepts this and other protestations as offered "in all simplicity" (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 121). Vincent was many things, but simple was not one of them.

Context:
BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: " Sien and I have been camping in the dunes from morning till night for days on end, like real Bohemians."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Sien and I camped in the dunes for it for days on end from morning till evening like true bohemians."

528. "become a better artist"BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: This remarkable last statement may be primarily a rebuttal to Theo's accusation that Vincent does not love Sien as much as he loved Kee Vos (see Ch. 17, n. 527). Vincent makes much of Sien's willingness to live in the noble poverty of a painter. "And she's thrifty and accepts our piece of black bread if need be, without becoming despondent" (JLB 231, 5/27/1882). In addition to her abilities as a model, Vincent advertises Sien's ability as a seamstress: "My everyday clothes, however, aren't at all shoddy, because now I have Sien to keep check of them and make minor repairs" (JLB 235, 6/3/1882); as well as her general thriftiness: "For she and I would both much rather wait for those sorts of things than take more money now, even if we could get it" (JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882). "We can scrimp and scrape in every way and as much as possible" (JLB 247, 7/18/1882).

In one of the more pathetic passages from the letters arguing for Sien, Vincent reports a conversation that he had with her purporting to show how perfectly suited she is to be a (poor) artist's wife: "I then spoke candidly with her and said: this is what I think about one thing and another, this is how I see your position and mine. I'm poor -- but I'm no seducer. Do you think you could get on with me or not? -- otherwise that's the end of it. Then she said, I want to stay with you, however poor you are. This is how we ended up where we are now." (JLB 227, 5/14/1882 or 5/15/1882.) What is most interesting about this passage is not just the self-reproaching marriage proposal ("Do you think you could get on with me or not?") but the incredible (and uncharacteristic) vagueness of it -- "this is what I think about one thing and another, this is how I see your position and mine" (ibid.). This could suggest either that Vincent is manufacturing the event or that he has no interest in the specifics of the reality of the relationship, only in the image of a family and an artist's wife -- or both.

Context:
BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Sien has taken to all the toil and moil of a painter's life and is so willing to pose, I think I shall become a better artist with her than if I had ended up with Kee Vos."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Sien takes on all the toil and worry of the painter's life and is so willing to pose, I believe I'll be a better artist with her than if I had won Kee Vos."

529. the cold reception BVG 193, 5/14/1882.

Context:
JLB 228, 5/16/1882: "I couldn't bear that horrible, cold reception in Amsterdam -- people reveal their true colours when it comes to settling accounts."

530. "I felt that my love" BVG 193, 5/14/1882. We have combined elements from both translations.

Context:
BVG 193, 5/14/1882: "I felt that my love -- so true, so honest and strong -- had literally been killed …"
JLB 228, 5/16/1882: "I felt that my love, which was truly honest, truly unfeigned and strong, had been literally beaten to death …" (emphasis in original).

531. "After death" BVG 193, 5/14/1882.

Context:
BVG 193, 5/14/1882: "When I came back from Amsterdam, I felt that my love -- so true, so honest and strong -- had literally been killed. But after death there is a resurrection. Resurgam."
JLB 228, 5/16/1882: "After I had left Amsterdam I felt that my love, which was truly honest, truly unfeigned and strong, had been literally beaten to death -- yet after death one rises from the dead. Resurgam." (Emphasis in original.)

532. recently been introduced BVG 212, 7/6/1882. In early July, after having read Une Page d'amour, Vincent writes: "I had only known a few fragments up to now" (JLB 244, 7/6/1882). Sund does a masterful job of filling in this brief reference with likely details of Vincent's previous, "fragmentary" experience with Zola. She adduces evidence in the letters that by early 1882, Vincent had read (1) some of Zola's youthful poetry and prose pieces that appeared in Dutch periodicals; (2) some non-fiction critical writings collected in Mes haines (My Hates), especially "Le Moment artistique"; and (3) some of the critical writings on Zola by Jan ten Brink, a Hague professor and editorialist whose praise of Zola ("a literary Hercules") had made the French naturalist a Dutch literary fashion by 1882 (Sund, pp. 51-54). Despite these dabblings, it seems much more likely to us that Vincent's enthusiasm for Zola originated in the friendship with George Breitner who was deeply involved in the current Hague literary and artistic scene than Vincent ever was. Van der Mast and Dumas cite a contemporary account: "At that time, my masters and my friends, the brothers Maris, Breitner, [Michiel Antonie] De Zwart, Isaac Israëls, [Marius Alexander Jacques] Bauer, and almost all young painters read Zola, and Salammbô, and Manette Salomon could be found on all sofas in the studios" (Van der Mast and Dumas, p. 162).

It is much more like Vincent to have his passions shaped by his identification with a friend than by debates on the pages of literary magazines, no matter how compelling or heated. In his letter to Plasschaert in 1912, J.B. Kam recalled that when he visited the Schenkweg sudio in 1882, Vincent "was reading Zola" (b3025 V/1982, "Kam, J.B." to "Plasschaert, A.", 6/12/1912). But Kam, who made other mistakes in this letter, could have confused his visit in 1882 with his much more extensive contact with Vincent in the summer of 1881, in Etten. In the same letter, Kam reports that Vincent was also studying "a very simple French booklet on perspective" -- probably a reference to Cassagne 's Guide de l'alphabet du dessin. Although Vincent does not specifically report studying the Guide in 1881, he does report studying the same author's Traité d'aquarelle at that time, which suggests that Kam's thirty-year-old memory could have the two encounters confused (JLB 168, June 1881). Given Vincent's combustible reading habits, it has to be significant that it took so long after his first encounter with Zola for his interest to ignite.

Context:
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "But in the hospital just recently, as it happens, an artist who described that Paris all grey with the hand of a master made a great impression on me. In 'Une page d'amour' [Love Letter] by Emile Zola I found several townscapes painted or drawn in a masterly, masterly fashion."

533. brief friend BreitnerSee Ch. 17, n. 532. 534. Originally impressed BVG 212, 7/6/1882.

Context:
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "But in the hospital just recently, as it happens, an artist who described that Paris all grey with the hand of a master made a great impression on me. In 'Une page d'amour' [Love Letter] by Emile Zola I found several townscapes painted or drawn in a masterly, masterly fashion."

535. seen from a high window Sund, pp. 54-55: Sund describes the "central motif" of Une page d'amour (A Love Letter), the first Zola novel Vincent reports reading, as "Paris seen from a high vantage point at the city's western edge." Sund does not use the word "window," but in arguing that Zola's Parisian "tableaux" were related to Impressionist paintings, she unintentionally supports our reading. In Zola's description, the action occurs "within a stable frame," she writes, "for in constructing each tableau Zola seems to work from edge to edge of a specific, restricted view" (ibid., p. 56). 536. "This Émile Zola" BVG 214, 7/7/1882.

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "That Emile Zola is a superb artist."

537. he devoured BVG 212, 7/6/1882. After Une page, the eighth and relatively brief installment in the Rougon-Macquart series, Vincent read both Le ventre de Paris (the third volume in the series) and Nana (the ninth), both long books, within about three weeks. Sund argues that Vincent's "confident overview" of the Rougon-Macquart series at this time ("Zola begins where Balzac leaves off and goes on to Sedan" [JLB 250, 7/23/1882]) suggests a broader understanding of Zola's project than could be acquired just from the books he explicitly mentions (Sund, pp. 59-60).

Context:
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "And that small book by him is why I'm very definitely going to read everything by Zola" (emphasis in original).

538. "Read as much" BVG 219, 7/23/1882.

Context:
BVG 219, 7/23/1882: "P.S. Read as much of Zola as you can; that is good for one, and makes things clear."
JLB 250, 7/23/1882: "P.S. Read lots of Zola, it's healthy stuff and clears the mind."

539. Le ventre de Paris BVG 214, 7/7/1882. In a postscript apparently added soon after he began reading Le ventre de Paris (he had only the day before written at length about Une Page d'amour), Vincent writes: "That Emile Zola is a superb artist. I'm now reading 'Le ventre de Paris,' it's mightily clever." (JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882.) Since the scene of rescue that so moved Vincent -- and applied most directly to his situation with Sien and Theo -- occurs in the opening pages of the Le ventre de Paris, it must have been what prompted him to add the postscript. The effect, no doubt intended, was that Theo would follow Vincent's lead. Which is exactly what happened. In a letter two weeks later, Vincent writes: "what I find rather pleasing is that you too have read Le ventre de Paris recently" (JLB 250, 7/23/1882). It is interesting that Vincent does not similarly lead Theo to read Nana nor make any comment about it even though he read it immediately after Le ventre de Paris. Nana is the story of a Parisian prostitute who rises to wealth and notoriety through cunning and sexual amorality -- a story that does not fit at all with Vincent's narrative of rescue.

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "I'm now reading 'Le ventre de Paris,' it's mightily clever."

540. Madame François BVG 219, 7/23/1882.

Context:
JLB 250, 7/23/1882: "You see, Theo, I believe Mme François' act showed true humanity, and in relation to Sien I have done and will continue to do what I believe someone like Mme François would have done for Florent if he hadn't cared more about politics than about her. So there you have it, and that humanity is the salt of life, without that I wouldn't care about life. Enough."

541. both rescuer and rescued At times, Vincent is quite explicit in his identification with Sien, and he often draws the parallel between his rescue of the fallen prostitute and Theo's rescue of him (sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly, sometimes inadvertently). He repeatedly describes her in terms that mirror his perception of himself: "She and I are two unfortunates who keep each other company and bear the burden together" (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882). "I would rather she had ugly speech and was good than cultured in her speech and without a heart" (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882). Vincent calls his love for Sien, "an intensely deep feeling, serious and not without the dark shadow of her and my fairly sombre pasts, a shadow I've written to you about before, as if, indeed, something sombre continues to threaten us against which our life must be a constant struggle" (JLB 244, 7/6/1882). He claims that " at first Sien was a fellow human being to me, as alone and unhappy as I was" (ibid.; emphasis in original). Later, he recounts a speech he gave Sien: "even if you're only a poor maidservant, even if you're only a poor whore, … I don't doubt for a moment that I have similarly attractive points, will be no different" (JLB 380, 9/2/1883). Lubin notes that "Sien's similarity to Vincent's view of himself helped draw him to her" (Lubin, p. 58). Mauron writes, "Vincent's letters show the extent to which he identified with this fraternal prostitute" (Mauron, p. 41). Even Hulsker inadvertently recognizes that Vincent at once formed an alliance of the flawed and wounded with Sien: "He did not idealize her -- nor himself" (Hulsker, Vincent and Theo, p. 122). 542. "What do you" BVG 219, 7/23/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 219, 7/23/1882: "I just want to ask you what you think of Mme. François, who lifted poor Florent into her cart and took him home when he was lying unconscious in the middle of the road where the greengrocers' carts were passing."
JLB 250, 7/23/1882: "Now I must ask you what you think of Mme François, who picks up poor Florent as he lies unconscious in the middle of the road where the vegetable carts are passing, and lets him ride with her."

543. seek guardianship BVG 198, 5/14/1882: Theo apparently raised this issue in his very first response to Vincent's confession of Sien and declaration of his intent to marry her. Vincent wrote back on the same day he received Theo's letter. Vincent limns his brother's hurtful speculation more thoroughly in a letter two weeks later: "I want to say something more about what you seem to fear, namely the possible steps the family may take to make me a ward of court" (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882). Committal was apparently the subject of considerable discussion between the brothers at this time. In the same letter, Vincent appears to quote extensively from one of Theo's letters in a passage that suggests in-depth treatment of the issue: "If you think that 'a few witnesses (false ones at that) need only state that you can't manage your financial affairs, and that's enough to give Pa the right to deprive you of your civil rights and make you a ward of court, ' if, I say, you really think that it's that easy these days, then I take the liberty to question that" (ibid.; emphasis added).

Context:
BVG 198, 5/14/1882: "But it goes without saying that there must be no question of putting me under guardianship, I made my feelings concerning that perfectly clear during the Gheel affair: that sort of thing would be quite hors de saison [inopportune]."
JLB 227, 5/14/1882 OR 5/15/1882: "Of course it mustn't be some kind of wardship, I made my feelings about that clear enough at the time of the Geel affair: that sort of thing would be utterly inappropriate."

544. they heard about Vincent had not told his parents about Sien and Theo had probably not, but that does not mean they didn't know. Certainly, Dorus already had suspicions. In a letter to Theo written after he visited Vincent in the hospital on June 13-14, he spoke about a package that he and Anna had sent Vincent: "Then I heard from him that he heard about the package we had sent him through his model. He had received my letter, not the content but that letter was enclosed in the package so the model must have opened the package. Could there be some danger associated with that so-called model? ... He always remains strange and my expectations are not high. If only he does not go downhill more and more, and if only he does not throw away himself on an unworthy person ... When the hour came for other visitors I noticed in him a certain restless looking at the door. Could it be that he expected a visit from somebody that he would rather not have me meet? Don't say that I am suspicious. I do not tell this to anyone else but you, and you will understand how I mean it ... He certainly has a tendency toward the lower classes, and out of contrariness and feeling of being deserted someone could sometimes make a wrong connection." (b2240 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 6/14/1882.) Despite the disclaimer, these comments suggest that Dorus knew exactly what was going on with Vincent and his "model." 545. erupted in a fury BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: Vincent's tirade against the threat of his father initiating guardianship proceedings occasions one of the more amusing instances of passages from the letters being taken out of context. Vincent writes: "I'll now not ask Pa for anything more, for example in the event of marriage, not so much as a single old cup or saucer. Sien and I have the essentials." (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882.) Rather than the bitter, paranoid denunciation that it is, Hulsker sees this passage as a "moving" declaration of love for Sien. "Vincent thinks that perhaps his father is afraid he will ask for money in order to marry Christine and he assures his brother: 'I ask nothing, not even an old cup and saucer. I ask but one single thing: to let me love and care for my poor, weak, ill-used little wife as well as my poverty permits, without their trying to separate, worry or hurt us.'" (Hulsker, "Van Gogh's Dramatic Years in The Hague," p. 15.)

Context:
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Sadly, yes -- Pa is capable of it -- but I tell you, if he dares to attempt something like that, I will stand up to him to the utmost."

546. weeks of letters Theo first raised the issue in his letter of May 13. Vincent responded immediately (JLB 227, 5/14/1882 or 5/15/1882). The issue reached a head in early June, occupying almost all of the long JLB 234 (6/1/1882-6/2/1882) and part of JLB 234 (6/1/1882-6/2/1882). It is mentioned in JLB 235 (6/3/1882) and becomes a major topic of conversation again in JLB 237 (6/8/1882). 547. threat of evictionBVG 202, 5/27/1882: The 50 francs that Theo sent on May 13 disappeared almost immediately. By the 27th, Vincent was again desperate. At the end of May, he wrote an even more desperate message on a postcard, because he could not afford a letter: "Today or tomorrow, being the 1st of June, I promised to pay my landlord 5 guilders rent of studio for the month of April + 7.50 guilders for last month -- makes 12.50 guilders" (JLB 231, 5/27/1882). Speaking of his landlord (probably Michiel de Zwart), he wrote: "The man will surely not give me any longer delay but they can immediately sell my furniture publicly. Whatever may be your opinion concerning the things I told you -- do not let it come to this scandal." (JLB 233, 5/30/1882.) The postcard was written in English, presumably so that postmen would not read it and learn of the impending crisis on the Schenkweg.

For all his brave talk of indifference, Vincent continued to care deeply about the world's opinion (JLB 227, 5/14/1882 or 5/15/1882). His frantic concern about a financial scandal (having his furniture sold to pay his back rent) stands in stark contrast to his purported lack of concern about a personal scandal involving marrying a prostitute. In his next letter, after Theo sent money on June 1, Vincent explained further about the bind he was in: "There's a mortgage on the house and so the rent is collected by someone else, who evicted the people downstairs last month; he gives short shrift" (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882). This is just the beginning of the problems he will have with his landlord in his new apartment.

Context:
JLB 231, 5/27/1882: "The rent is due on 1 June, and I have nothing, literally nothing. I hope you'll send something."

548. "incompetence in financial affairs" BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882. Vincent appears to feel more vulnerable to a guardianship action based on " financial grounds," as opposed to the " physical grounds" his father argued in 1880: "I must tell you again that the precedent of Geel, at which time they were minded to make me a ward of court on physical grounds, makes it difficult for the family suddenly to change their story now and look for financial rather than physical reasons" (JLB 237, 6/8/1882; emphasis in original).

Context:
BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Let me tell you, I know of a case where a noble and very rich family tried to place somebody under guardianship and enlisted the services of lawyers and Jesuits -- and yet failed with the person in question -- although there were two complaints raised against him, in the first place his incompetence in financial affairs and in the second place his being of unsound mind."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "I say to you, I know of a case in which a noble, very rich family wanted to make someone a ward of court, employing lawyers and Jesuits, but still didn't succeed in having that person made a ward of court -- even though he was accused on two counts: first, incompetence in financial matters and second, diminished mental capacity" (emphasis in original).

549. deepened his paranoia BVG 201, 6/2/1882-6/3/1882. Elsewhere in the same letter, he complains: "But what often happens in our family? There's some piece of gossip; people inflate it, take it to an extreme, arrive at a judgement or decision about someone, sometimes entirely without having informed the person in question or speaking to him, relying solely on impressions, hearsay, snippets of information (the devil take them, especially the last)." (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882; emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "I'm aware that sometimes very ugly things were repeatedly said about me in the family in various ways, although I don't know the exact source."

300 550. "will and the temerity"BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882.

Context:
BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "If they do have the will and the temerity, I am not going to say, 'Oh, please don't do that,' but on the contrary will have no hesitation in letting them get on with it so that they incur public disgrace and are saddled with the costs of the case."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "If they do want and dare to, I shan't say, 'Oh, please don't do that', but on the contrary, I'll let them go ahead so that they're shamed in public and have to bear the costs of the matter."

551. "public disgrace" BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882.

Context:
BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "If they do have the will and the temerity, I am not going to say, 'Oh, please don't do that,' but on the contrary will have no hesitation in letting them get on with it so that they incur public disgrace and are saddled with the costs of the case."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "If they do want and dare to, I shan't say, 'Oh, please don't do that,' but on the contrary, I'll let them go ahead so that they're shamed in public and have to bear the costs of the matter."

552. protracted court fightBVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882. To back up this threat, Vincent cited case after case in which a "manly" defense had foiled the efforts of "lawyers and Jesuits" to "get rid of people thought to be 'troublesome' or 'disagreeable'" (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882). (To sharpen this image, Vincent uses a French expression, mauvais coucheur, which does not translate well in English. The usual translation, "awkward customer," does not convey the original's undertones of both troublemaker and layabout.)

Vincent cited three cases in particular: (1) "I know of a case where even the Jesuits were unable to have someone they wanted out of the way made a ward of court, for the simple reason that the man said, I am not in the slightest the sort of person to whom wardship is at all applicable, and wouldn't give in." (2) "I know of a case in which a noble, very rich family wanted to make someone a ward of court, employing lawyers and Jesuits, but still didn't succeed in having that person made a ward of court -- even though he was accused on two counts: first, incompetence in financial matters and second, diminished mental capacity. He protested, and the judge let the family know unofficially that they'd be well advised to drop the case; the family had to give up even before proceedings really began." (3) "Then, an example of someone who was placed under supervision somewhere against his will so that he couldn't go where he pleased, warns the person supervising him that he has no right to deprive him of his freedom and must let him go ... warns him several times quite coolly and calmly but receives a refusal in reply. Then smashes his guard's brains in with the poker and remains calmly standing beside him and gives himself up. The case was investigated and the result was complete acquittal (because in some extreme cases there's a 'right of self-defence'), and because of the murder the original case was looked at again and it was found that the accused wasn't someone who deserved to be made a ward of court." (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882.)

But the most interesting case Vincent's research turns up is the one he doesn't reveal until almost a year later. Presumably in response to Theo's speculation about a commitment proceeding, Vincent went to see a Dutch painter named Marinus Boks. A year later, he told Van Rappard (not Theo) the story: "One painter here recently ended up in the madhouse -- Boks, a landscape painter. It was very difficult to get help for him before he was in there, although during one illness he did get some help after all, chiefly through Mauve. Now that he's inside, everyone speaks sympathetically of him and calls him very clever. ... The chap himself told me a year ago that he got a medal in England -- which he'd sold for the silver." (JLB 307, 2/4/1883; emphasis in original.) It appears that Vincent visited Boks while the commitment proceedings were underway and that Boks was subsequently committed. Whether Boks's case was one of the three described by Vincent in June 1882 is unknown. If so, then Boks's ultimate failure to defeat the commitment effort must have given Vincent pause.

Context:
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "In short, in this day and age it isn't easy to make someone a ward of court if he protests calmly and manfully and forthrightly."

553. "then bashed his guardian's brains" BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882.

Context:
BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "There was the case of someone who, placed under supervision somewhere against his will so that he couldn't go where he chose, warned the person under whose supervision he had been placed that he had no right to deprive him of his liberty and that he would have to let him go ... warned him a few times coolly and quite calmly, but was rebuffed. Then bashed his guardian's brains in with a poker and stood there quite calmly and gave himself up."
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "Then, an example of someone who was placed under supervision somewhere against his will so that he couldn't go where he pleased, warns the person supervising him that he has no right to deprive him of his freedom and must let him go ... warns him several times quite coolly and calmly but receives a refusal in reply. Then smashes his guard's brains in with the poker and remains calmly standing beside him and gives himself up."

554. in three installments BVG 204, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882. Vincent chose to interpret this imposed budgeting as a favor, rather than a failure of confidence. Proof that this was a wise move on Theo's part was not long in coming. Despite Theo's pledge and an additional boost of income from Uncle Cor in June, Vincent was caught penniless when Theo's July 1 payment did not arrive promptly. "But if you haven't yet sent, I would ask you to please do so soon," he wrote on July 4, "because I'm running short and must pay 10 guilders in advance to go back into hospital" (JLB 243, 7/4/1882). Theo responded with a 100 franc enclosure only two days later, presumably combining the payments for July 1 and July 10, upsetting his careful plan as soon as it began (JLB 244, 7/6/1882). The message to Vincent, of course, was that with sufficient pleading he could accelerate the payment schedule.

Context:
JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882: "What you say about dividing the month into 3 so that I would receive the money on the 1st, 10th and 20th is most welcome. That's much easier for me. I don't need to tell you what a relief your letter was."

555. "I wonder what" BVG 211, 7/4/1882.

Context:
JLB 243, 7/4/1882: "I'm longing ... for what you'll say about the new house. And for what you'll think of Sien when you see her, and of the new little clever-clogs. I do hope you'll feel some sympathy."

556. defiance to flattery BVG 212, 7/6/1882. Vincent tells Theo that a passage in his letter describing "Paris all grey" "made a great impression on me," then compares it to a passage in Émile Zola's Une page d'amour (A Page of Love) (JLB 244, 7/6/1882.). As if that were not praise enough, he goes on at fulsome (and patronizing) length: "You have something mightily artistic in you, brother -- cultivate it -- let it first put down roots one way or another and then flower -- don't give it to just anyone -- but seriously, for yourself, think about it, and don't consider it a misfortune if it concentrates itself through that thinking and comes to occupy quite an important place in your activity. But I may be venturing into forbidden territory, so no more about that for today. Only, again, there is 'drawing' in your short description -- for me palpable and comprehensible, even though you haven't yet pursued your impression to the point where it would acquire a more robust body and stand on its feet visibly or palpably for everyone. The true pain and tension of creating begins at the point where you let go of the description -- but you have the intelligence of creating in damned good measure. Now you can't go any further because you don't yet believe in yourself in this respect, otherwise you would take the plunge, that's to say venture further. But enough. There's a certain je ne sais quoi in your description, a scent -- a memory -- of a watercolour by [Richard Parkes] Bonington, for example, only it's still faint as if in a mist. Do you know that drawing in words is also an art, and sometimes betrays a hidden force latent inside, just as the blue or grey cloud of smoke betrays the hearth?" (ibid.; emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "Before going on to various other matters, I must tell you that I was very taken by one passage in your letter describing Paris by night."

557. affection BVG 212, 7/6/1882. There are other examples strewn through the many letters from this three-week period: "There really is a sympathy between you and me in many things, and it seems to me, Theo, that all your trouble and all my trouble won't be in vain. You have always gone on helping me." (JLB 247, 7/18/1882.) "I'm so delighted you're coming, old chap" (JLB 250, 7/23/1882). "When you come I'll take care to be close to home as long as you're in the city. ... I can find you wherever you suggest a meeting. ... I long for every half hour you can spare. ... I have no secrets from you, and you have my complete confidence in everything." (JLB 251, 7/26/1882; emphasis in original.)

Context:
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "I would much, much rather that you'd been present, so that I could have shown you everything here this afternoon and discussed it with you."

558. "Brother, I think of you" BVG 213, 7/6/1882.

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "You see, brother, I've thought of you so very much recently, first because everything I possess is really yours, including my zest for life and energy ... "

559. "save and economize" BVG 216, 7/19/1882. Vincent adds a caveat to this pledge, suggesting that, at some level, he knew it was unlikely to be kept to Theo's satisfaction: "We want to and can live together, the two of us, on what I would otherwise have on my own -- we can scrimp and scrape in every way and as much as possible. You know well enough how I've talked about this before." (JLB 247, 7/18/1882.) There is some evidence that Theo explicitly doubted Vincent's implausible assurances that four (Vincent, Sien, daughter, and son) could live as cheaply as one. In fact, Vincent cannot even budget to the end of the month. Before Theo's visit, he has to write to ensure that Theo does not wait and bring the August 1 payment when he comes a few days later, but instead mails it on August 1. "As soon as I received your last letter, however, I made some purchases of paper and paint and brushes," Vincent explains somewhat sheepishly, "and by 1 August I'll certainly need some more things. So I want to ask you to be so kind as to send something all the same just before 1 August, if possible, even though you'll be coming soon afterwards, because I've worked it out exactly, exactly, and after the first few days of August I'll certainly be absolutely broke." (JLB 251, 7/26/1882; emphasis in original.)

Context:
BVG 216, 7/19/1882: "Sien loves me and I love Sien; we can and will live together on what I should otherwise have lived on alone -- we will save and economize in all respects and as much as possible -- you know well enough I have already told you this."
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "Sien loves me and I love Sien. We want to and can live together, the two of us, on what I would otherwise have on my own -- we can scrimp and scrape in every way and as much as possible. You know well enough how I've talked about this before."

560. renounced his melancholic BVG 220, 7/26/1882.

Context:
JLB 251, 7/26/1882: "It matters greatly to me that you shouldn't get the idea that I'm in a dejected or abnormal mood."

561. "dogged work" BVG 218, 7/21/1882: Vincent's definition of hard work includes a defiant codicil.

Context:
BVG 218, 7/21/1882: "Art demands dogged work, work in spite of everything and continuous observation. By dogged, I mean in the first place incessant labor, but also not abandoning one's views upon the say-so of this person or that."
JLB 249, 7/21/1882: "Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation. By persistent I mean in the first place continued labour, but also not abandoning your approach because of what someone else says."

562. continuing ill health BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882. As late as mid-July, Vincent was still working very little, and mostly in the studio. He blames his doctor: "The doctor won't yet let me do as I would wish -- I still tire very quickly" (JLB 248, 7/19/1882). Once he does go back to work, he makes a considerable self-sacrificing show of doing so despite his poor health. "I now feel so much new pleasure in work" (ibid.). And in the next letter, he underscores the point: "Today I made an agreement with myself, which was to regard my illness, or rather what's left of it, as non-existent. Enough time has been lost, the work must be carried on. So, well or not well, I'm going to draw again regularly from morning till evening." (JLB 249, 7/21/1882.) A visit by Tersteeg in the meantime played a role in this sudden burst of self-disregarding work fever.

Context:
BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: But now I cannot work for a long enough stretch, which worries me a great deal; I am so anxious to set to work, especially in the open air. In the meantime, as things are, I am glad to be able to do at least a little.
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "But at present I can't work for long enough at a time on a piece, which is very frustrating because I long so much to work and to go outdoors. Meanwhile I'm glad that at least I can now do a little again."

563. undertook sketching trips BVG 214, 7/7/1882. He enthusiastically describes one drawing that he did there: "I hope you'll like that drawing. The vista -- the view over the roofs of the village with the small church tower and the dunes -- was so attractive." (JLB 261, 7/26/1882.)

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "Now tomorrow I'd like to take a trip to Scheveningen by tram and do some drawing on the beach."

564. images of pollard willows BVG 221, 8/1/1882.

Context:
BVG 221, 8/1/1882: "I have attacked that old whopper of a pollard willow, and I think it is the best of the watercolours …"
JLB 252, 7/31/1882: "I've attacked that old giant of a pollard willow, and I believe it has turned out the best of the watercolours."

565. meadowed vistas BVG 220, 7/26/1882.

Context:
JLB 251, 7/26/1882: "I also have a second of the Rijswijk meadows in which the same subject takes on an entirely different aspect through being seen from a different height and viewpoint."

566. bleaching fields BVG 220, 7/26/1882.

Context:
JLB 251, 7/26/1882: "I've also done a bleaching ground at Scheveningen, on the spot in one go, entirely in wash almost without preparation, on a very coarse piece of torchon. Here are a couple of small sketches of it." (Emphasis in original.)

567. "[with] a real Dutch character" BVG 219, 7/23/1882. He described one such drawing as a "view over the roofs of the village with the small church tower," and said of it: "I can't tell you with how much pleasure I drew it" (JLB 251, 7/26/1882). When he visited an exhibition of French art in July, his eyes recorded only landscapes and landscapists where, a few months earlier, they would have seen only figures. The result is one of the most elaborate and enthusiastic accounts of an exhibition anywhere in the corpus of surviving letters: "There are many beautiful things there by Dupré, Corot, Daubigny, Diaz, Courbet, Breton, Jacque &c. I especially liked the large sketch by T. Rousseau from the Mesdag collection, a drove of cattle in the Alps. And a landscape by Courbet: yellow hilly, sandy ground, with fresh young grass growing here and there, with black brushwood fences against which a few white birch trunks stand out, grey buildings in the distance with red and blue slate roofs. And a narrow, small, light delicate grey band of sky above. The horizon very high, however, so that the ground is the main thing, and the delicate little band of sky really serves more as contrast to bring out the rough texture of the masses of dark earth. I think this is the most beautiful work by Courbet that I've seen so far. The Duprés are superb, and there's a Daubigny, big thatched roofs against the slope of a hill, that I couldn't get enough of. The same goes for a small Corot, a stretch of water and the edge of a wood on a summer morning about 4 o'clock. A single small pink cloud indicates that the sun will come up in a while. A stillness and calm and peace that enchants one. I'm glad to have seen all this." (JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882.)

Context:
BVG 219, 7/23/1882: "They are landscapes with complicated perspective, very difficult to draw, but for that very reason there is a real Dutch character and sentiment in them."
JLB 250, 7/23/1882: "They're landscapes, very difficult in their delineation, with complicated perspective -- but precisely because of that there's a true Dutch character and sentiment to them."

568. "I am quite" BVG 220, 7/26/1882. Vincent adds a caveat: "As you see, I've become very caught up in landscapes. The reason is that Sien can't pose yet, but otherwise the figure must remain the chief concern." (JLB 251, 7/26/1882.) Presumably, this was partly because he had often used the justification for Sien that she could pose for figure drawing. The two justifications had, by this time, become inextricably intertwined.

Context:
JLB 251, 7/26/1882: "As you see, I've become very caught up in landscapes."

569. his draftsman's fist BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: Despite his eagerness to placate his brother in advance of his visit in August, Vincent clearly realizes that taking up watercolor represents a significant reversal after months of strident rhetoric in defense of drawing. The strain of this reversal can be heard in his comments, which try to reach out to his brother while not overtly renouncing his claims for the primacy of figure drawing. In mid-July, he starts out trying to portray the shift as insignificant. A week later, he feels a need to explicitly reassert his commitment to drawing and to characterize his watercolor work as merely the logical extension thereof: "These [watercolours] are simply intended to show you that if I work at drawing, the correctness of perspective and proportion, it also benefits the watercolouring. And for myself I did them to test whether now, after doing nothing but drawing for a time (around six months), I found watercolours easier, and secondly to see where I still need to do more work on the foundation or basic drawing on which everything depends." (JLB 250, 7/23/1882.)

Three days later, he sounds positively defensive in his insistence that whatever success he is having with watercolors is directly the result of his months of concentrating on drawing: "And look, I think this is why I now work much more fluently in watercolour, because for such a long time I did my best to draw more correctly" (JLB 251, 7/26/1882). (This may be in response to a comment by Theo to the effect of "Finally!" which would undoubtedly have stirred Vincent to defensiveness.) Yet, in the same letter, he reasserts in florid terms his natural affinity to the medium he resisted for so long: "All these things make me fresher and fresher inside -- you'll also see that I'm not afraid of a fresh green or a soft blue ..." (ibid.). Even here, however, one can hear the debate going on in Vincent's head between his old love, black-and-white drawing, and the imperatives of pleasing Theo (i.e., the imperatives of the marketplace). He adds to his celebration of color a postscript that essentially cancels it out: "… and the thousand different greys, for there's hardly any colour that isn't a grey: red-grey, yellow-grey, green-grey, blue-grey. This is what all colour mixing comes down to." (ibid.) This is the muddle of conflicting imperatives from which Vincent's art will struggle to escape for the next several years.

Context:
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "The two drawings I've done in the past few days are both watercolours. Because I wanted to make an experiment. It seems to me, though, that I must still keep working mainly at pure drawing, which is the foundation of all the rest. But as you saw in the latest, I'm gradually beginning to use wash."

570. "I have a great urge" BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "Now, speaking more particularly about art, I sometimes have a great urge to start painting again."
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "To continue on the subject of art, I sometimes feel a great desire to get back to painting" (emphasis in original).

571. his larger studio BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882. He reiterates this unlikely logic (Vincent never let logistics, light, or mess interfere with his obsessions) a few days later: "And sometimes I feel a strong desire to paint as well, a very strong desire and ambition. Especially now that the better light and the better studio automatically put the idea in my mind." (JLB 248, 7/19/1882.)

Context:
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "To continue on the subject of art, I sometimes feel a great desire to get back to painting. The studio is now more spacious, the light better, I have a good cupboard for keeping paint &c. without creating too much mess and dirt. Also, I've already straightaway started working with watercolour again." (Emphasis in original.)

572. "so they will not make" BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882.

Context:
BVG 215, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "The studio is larger now, the light better; I have a good cupboard to keep my paints in, so they will not make too much dirt and mess."
JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882: "The studio is now more spacious, the light better, I have a good cupboard for keeping paint &c. without creating too much mess and dirt."

573. reworked them in color BVG 220, 7/26/1882.

Context:
JLB 251, 7/26/1882: "I'll make sure that several things are ready by the time you come. I think you'll like the Fish-drying barn now that it's with colours."

574. "I think you will like them" BVG 220, 7/26/1882: Assuming Vincent redid more than one previous image in this way, we have altered the translation to change the number. Vincent was referring specifically to one image, Fish-Drying Barn [F 945 JH 160].

Context:
BVG 220, 7/26/1882: "About the time of your arrival I will have some things to show you. I think you will like that 'Fish Drying Barn' now that it is done in color."
JLB 251, 7/26/1882: "I'll make sure that several things are ready by the time you come. I think you'll like the Fish-drying barn now that it's with colours."

301 575. cordial correspondence BVG 214, 7/7/1882. His parents made the first conciliatory gesture, with a package of gifts ("over and underclothes, and cigars") that they sent when Vincent was hospitalized in June (JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882). "I can't tell you how it affected me," he wrote Theo on June 9 (JLB 238, 6/9/1882). "It was so kind of home and gave me so much pleasure, especially now. ... I thought it was so nice that this came from home, especially now, that I wanted to write to you directly. Also, needless to say, I don't need any more clothes now. I've written home to thank them and to tell them I was here." (JLB 238, 6/9/1882.) It was this package, with 10 guilders enclosed (ibid.), that sent Dorus to Vincent's apartment on the Schenkweg when he visited The Hague on June 13-14 (b2240 V/1982, "Gogh, Theodorus van" to "Gogh, Theo van", 6/14/1882). It was also Sien's involvement in the delivery of this package that roused Dorus's suspicion and concern, even though all he knew of her at the time was that she was Vincent's "model" (ibid.). Despite his momentary elation at the unexpected package, Vincent responded to his father's subsequent visit and his parents' messages of concern during his hospital stay with something less than full enthusiasm as he further contemplated the unlikelihood of convincing them to approve of his marriage to Sien (JLB 239, 6/22/1882).

By the time he emerged from the hospital in July, something of his former bitterness (despite his explicit denials) had reappeared: "I most certainly do appreciate what Pa and Ma did during my illness ... However, that's not why I didn't immediately write to Pa and Ma about Sien or anything else, and only sent a brief word to tell them of my recovery. And here's why. Because something is left of what happened last summer and this winter that marks the line between past and present like an iron barrier. It isn't in the least my intention to go in the same manner as last year to Pa and Ma to ask their advice or opinion, because it became clear to me then that there was a sharp difference in way of thinking and attitude to life. Nonetheless, it is my ardent desire to keep the peace and to convince Pa and Ma that it wouldn't be right if they were to turn against me, in the belief that I was someone who only dreamed and didn't know how to act -- that, I say, they are mistaken in their view that my approach to situations is so impractical as to make it necessary for them to 'guide' me. You see, Theo, believe me, I don't say this out of bitterness, contempt or disdain for Pa and Ma -- or to glorify myself -- but only to help you grasp one fact, namely this. Pa and Ma aren't the sort of people to understand me -- neither my faults nor my better side -- they can't put themselves in my position. Reasoning with them only leads to quarrels." (JLB 244, 7/6/1882; emphasis in original.)

It is indicative of how deeply Vincent was torn between longing for his parents' love and resentment at not receiving it that the next time they sent him a package of gifts ("tobacco and cigars, a cake and underwear"), he was, once again, as elated as a child (JLB 251, 7/26/1882). "In short, a whole package," he wrote Theo (ibid.). "Don't you think that's kind? It's more that I'm pleased by it showing their warm feelings than by anything else." (ibid.)

Context:
JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882: "I received a letter from Pa and Ma today and wrote to them as soon as I heard that I needn't go back."

576. power of its imagery BVG 213, 7/6/1882: Vincent sees the reconciliation with his father as virtually identical, in means and effect, with the reconciliation with Theo. In both cases, he expects (hopes) that by visiting his new home and witnessing his new family, they will have a sudden and complete change of heart regarding Sien. In one especially touching passage, he describes buying enough tableware for all three of them to sit down together: "The latest things I've bought are a few plates, forks, spoons, knives, because neither Sien nor I had any until now. I thought 3 people so 3 sets, but then I thought -- and another for Theo or for Pa when they come to have a look. So your spot by the window and your place with us are open and waiting for you ... I only mean to say -- after all, you will come without question ... and Pa too." (JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882.) Both plans, of course, are equally delusional. 577. "I shall beg Father" BVG 212, 7/6/1882.

Context:
BVG 212, 7/6/1882: "Then -- but not before -- I shall write Father and Mother that I have something to tell them. I shall beg Father to make another trip here at my expense, and to come and stay with me for a few days."
JLB 244, 7/6/1882: "Then -- but not before -- I want to write to Pa and Ma that I have something to say to them, that I invite Pa to repeat his journey at my expense and to stay with me for a few days."

578. morning of July 18 BVG 216, 7/19/1882. Hulsker and others date letter JLB 247, and therefore Tersteeg's visit, to July 19. But we have taken the better dating of JLB 247 as 7/18/1882. On the letter, Vincent wrote "Dinsdagmorgen" (Tuesday morning) and July 18 was a Tuesday. Given the tone of the letter, it is unlikely that he waited to mail it. There is also internal evidence that the next letter, JLB 248, which Hulsker also dates to July 19, was written the day after JLB 247: "Rest assured, the woman will soon be at ease with you. You, after all, won't observe her and look down on her the way H.G.T. did yesterday." (JLB 248, 7/19/1882.) 579. baby at her breast BVG 216, 7/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "He comes in here, takes in the woman breast-feeding the baby with a look that makes her cringe, and without one kind word to her."

580. "What is the meaning" BVG 216, 7/19/1882: Vincent indicates that Tersteeg's reaction to the sight of Sien and her baby was abrupt and unkind.

Context:
BVG 216, 7/19/1882: "He comes into my house, he looks at the woman -- who has her baby at her breast -- with an expression in his eyes that makes her crumble, and without one kind word to her (a thing one does involuntarily to a young mother, even if one does not know her), says to me, 'Is this your model or is she something else?' Look here, that is neither humane nor delicate."
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "He comes in here, takes in the woman breast-feeding the baby with a look that makes her cringe, and without one kind word to her (which you would expect for a mother, even if one doesn't know her) he says to me 'Is that your model or is it something else?' You see, that's neither humane nor tactful."

581. "Is this your" BVG 216, 7/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "Is that your model or is it something else?"

582. stammered a defense BVG 216, 7/19/1882: This is how Vincent excuses his lack of quick and vigorous retort.

Context:
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "My dear Theo, for the woman's sake, for my own sake, I restrained myself, I didn't get angry. I gave curt and plain answers to his in my view all too indiscreet questions, perhaps too gently, but I preferred to resort to too gently rather than perhaps getting angry."

583. family as "ridiculous" BVG 216, 7/19/1882. By Vincent's account, Tersteeg referred to his pretense of having a family "as ridiculous as if I were to drive about the city in my own carriage" (JLB 247, 7/18/1882). The point, apparently, was that Vincent could not afford a family any more than he could afford a coach-and-four. With characteristic accuracy, Tersteeg hit Vincent's rawest nerve, although the only specific response he reports giving is a lame one: "I replied that it was most definitely a different matter entirely" (ibid.).

Context:
BVG 216, 7/19/1882: "Wasn't it just as ridiculous as driving my own four-in-hand all over town?"
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "Wasn't it as ridiculous as if I were to drive about the city in my own carriage?"

584. "Have you gone" BVG 216, 7/19/1882: Vincent uses quotation marks. We have altered the pronouns and verbs accordingly.

Context:
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "'Was I not right in the head?'"

585. threatened to write BVG 216, 7/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "He kept chopping and changing from one subject to another, dragging in my Father and, just imagine, my uncle in Princenhage!!! Would get involved. Would write." (Emphasis in original.)

586. "as foolish as" BVG 216, 7/19/1882: Vincent does not put this in quotation marks.

Context:
BVG 216, 7/19/1882: "Oh! then of course he would not write, but again he talked about my being just as foolish as a man who wanted to drown himself, and his wanting to save me from it."
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "Oh in that case, of course, he wouldn't write, and then again saying that I was as foolish as someone who wanted to jump into the water and he was trying to hold me back."

587. he passed Sien BVG 216, 7/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "But Sien changed on the spot when she heard Tersteeg speak -- and so did I."

588. "You will make that woman unhappy" BVG 216, 7/19/1882: Vincent does not put this comment, which we have slightly altered, in quotation marks. Given how devastating this remark must have been, one can only wonder what greater injuries are masked by "&c."

Context:
BVG 216, 7/19/1882: "Then he uttered one other abusive remark -- I should make that woman unhappy, etc."
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "He had another gibe -- I would make the woman unhappy, &c."

589. As soon as BVG 216, 7/19/1882. Elsewhere in the same letter, Vincent says that Tersteeg visited "this morning" (JLB 247, 7/18/1882). Vincent wrote at the top of the letter "Tuesday morning," suggesting that very little time elapsed before Vincent sat down to tell his brother of the morning's awful events.

Context:
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "I'm writing to you about it immediately."

590. with belated indignation BVG 216, 7/19/1882: Vincent writes to Theo, speaking of Tersteeg's insults. Elsewhere, he reports in an apologetic vein that "I restrained myself, I didn't get angry. I gave curt and plain answers to his in my view all too indiscreet questions, perhaps too gently, but I preferred to resort to too gently rather than perhaps getting angry." (JLB 247, 7/18/1882.)

Context:
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "No one could remain calm in the face of that. So although I didn't get angry, I do severely blame Mr. Tersteeg."

591. "unsympathetic" BVG 216, 7/19/1882.

Context:
BVG 216, 7/19/1882: "It is just what I am afraid of, unsympathetic, domineering, indelicate and indiscreet meddling in my most intimate and private affairs."
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "This is exactly what I fear: an unsympathetic, schoolmasterly, unfeeling and indiscreet meddling in my most intimate and private affairs."

592. "meddling in" BVG 216, 7/19/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 216, 7/19/1882: "It is just what I am afraid of, unsympathetic, domineering, indelicate and indiscreet meddling in my most intimate and private affairs."
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "This is exactly what I fear: an unsympathetic, schoolmasterly, unfeeling and indiscreet meddling in my most intimate and private affairs."

593. "policeman-like mood" BVG 216, 7/19/1882.

Context:
BVG 216, 7/19/1882: "So though I did not lose my temper, I am very angry with Mr. Tersteeg, and will have nothing to do with him nor speak with him again as long as he is in that policeman-like mood."
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "So although I didn't get angry, I do severely blame Mr. Tersteeg, and I don't want to have anything to do with him or speak to him as long as he's in this police officer mood."

594. "I believe he" BVG 216, 7/19/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "I believe he would very cold-bloodedly watch Sien drown or something, and then claim it was beneficial for civilized society."

595. Tersteeg's accusation It should be noted that Tersteeg's comment may not have been the devastating accusation that Vincent, in his defensiveness, took it for. He may have meant it more as an expression of disapproving shock -- "Are you crazy?" -- than as a suggestion of actual mental illness. In some ways, this interpretation would make Vincent's exaggerated denials even more telling. On the other side, Tralbaut reports, from an independent source, that "Tersteeg was convinced that Vincent was mad" (Tralbaut, p. 100). According to Tralbaut, "This is what [Tersteeg] told his son Johan, who shared his father's view" (ibid.). This, of course, could have been a view formed later than 1882 in response to subsequent events in Vincent's life. 596. Never has a doctor BVG 216, 7/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: " Never has a doctor told me I was in any way abnormal in the tone and the sense in which Tersteeg dared to say it to me this morning. That I couldn't think or that I wasn't right in the head. Never in the past, or now, has a doctor said that. I have a nervous constitution, but there's absolutely no harm in that. With Tersteeg these things become serious insults. The same as with Pa when he wanted to send me to Geel, but more so. I may not let that kind of thing go unchallenged." (Emphasis in original.)

302 597. "untimely interference" BVG 216, 7/19/1882.

Context:
BVG 216, 7/19/1882: "I think he is capable of causing all kinds of miseries through his untimely interference."
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "I believe he's capable of causing all sorts of misery with his untimely meddling at home ..."

598. "spoil everything again" BVG 216, 7/19/1882: Vincent's use of "again" here is very interesting. It could be either a general expression of exasperation about Tersteeg's direct channel to both Vincent's parents and his Uncle Cent, and Vincent's suspicion that the gérant has often used that special access to undermine him. However, it may be a very specific reference to the damning reports about his sexual escapades that Vincent had long suspected Tersteeg gave the family in 1872-73, thus precipitating his expulsion from the Hague branch of Goupil in 1873. (See Chapter 5.)

Context:
BVG 216, 7/19/1882: "I am on good terms with Father and Mother now, and who knows but that he will spoil everything again?"
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "Things are all right with home at the moment, but, you'll see, who knows whether he won't ruin it all again."

599. "[I] propose" BVG 217, 7/19/1882. (We have slightly altered the translation.) Vincent expected to get credit for this tactical withdrawal: "I just hope, Theo, that what I've said about marriage will make you see that I don't demand to have my own way in everything, that I'll go along with what you think as far as I can, but see this also as proof that I deserve to have your trust and to have you write to me about various things. I can't get on with the others, and with you I can talk and reach a compromise." (JLB 248, 7/19/1882.) Vincent also clearly reserved the right to tell his parents whenever he chose to (although Theo demanded that he renounce that intention when the two met in August [JLB 253, 8/5/1882]). A neutral interpretation of Vincent's words would be that he was only putting off telling his parents until he could win his brother's support for his marriage proposal. That is the implication of this passage: "I've told you that I want to marry Sien, and as soon as possible -- note, though, that I especially wanted to discuss this matter with you in person and before I said anything to Pa. I get on better with you, you sense things more correctly than all the others put together, and if you say something it's useful to me. Even if we disagree about this or that, there's always a middle way to be found between you and me, because we speak with sympathy and calmness." (JLB 288, 11/26/1882-11/27/1882.) But one could also interpret his reservation as an implicit threat to tell their parents if Theo did not continue to support him, both with money and in his marriage plans.

Context:
BVG 217, 7/19/1882: "I am ready to propose to you letting the whole question of civil marriage rest for an indefinite time and, for instance, postponing it until I earn 150 francs a month by selling my work, at which time your help will no longer be necessary. With you, but only with you, I will thus agree that for the time being I shall not enter into a civil marriage, not until my drawing has progressed so far that I am independent."
JLB 248, 7/19/1882: "I want to propose that we let the whole subject of civil marriage rest for a while and, for example, postpone speaking about it until such time as I earn around 150 francs a month by selling my work, so that help from you is no longer required. Thus with YOU, but with you alone, I want to agree that for the time being I won't marry her -- in a civil marriage -- until the drawing business is going so well that I'm independent." (Emphasis in original.)

600. repeated resolutions When Vincent first told Theo about Sien, he disavowed any present intent to tell his parents, fearing that his father would "play the part of policeman" and try to "interfere" (JLB 225, 5/10/1882). He clearly foresaw the potential for a family conflagration: "If Pa refused to give his consent, there are legal provisions that guarantee me, as an adult, my independence, but I don't think that Pa will go so far as to oppose it" (ibid.). Apparently aiming to avoid such a fight, Vincent says he will marry Sien "without telling anyone about it, quietly and without any fuss" as soon as she returns from giving birth in Leiden (ibid.).

Only a few weeks later, buoyed by a "friendly letter" from his parents and by the increasingly powerful fantasy of his new family and new life, Vincent has changed course completely, vowing to "definitely" tell his parents about the affair "in 3 weeks or so -- when she's in Leiden" (JLB 230, 5/23/1882). He is not without doubts, however. "When, I say, they know about one thing and another, will they still speak kindly then???" (ibid.). Vincent asks Theo not to say anything to their parents before he does. As Vincent gets closer to the time when he said he would tell his parents, the possibility of a refusal becomes more vivid in his imagination: "I know for certain that Pa really does think it important, and although he won't approve of my marrying her he would think it far worse if I lived with her without being married. His advice would be: leave her, and he would give that advice in this form: wait, which would be the end of it and quite inappropriate. Pa's like that ... he procrastinates over matters that are urgent and pressing, and by doing so can make a person furious. So let Pa keep his 'wait' to himself, for if he should say it I couldn't restrain myself." (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882.)

Inflamed by these speculations, Vincent becomes increasingly defiant: "Just imagine, Theo, how very different it could have been in our home. If Pa had been a little less suspicious of me, for example, if he was a little less mistrustful, if, instead of always seeing me as doing everything wrong, he had devoted a little more patience and good will to understanding my true intentions -- which he always completely misinterprets. … For it's a great sorrow to think that it's even worse: as if I had no home, no father, no mother, no family." (JLB 234, 6/1/1882-6/2/1882.) Vincent anticipates his father's objections: "Do you think Pa might perhaps be concerned that I was going to ask him for money because I'm in this situation? Let me just explain how things stand. I most certainly wouldn't do that. Pa has often told me that my upbringing &c. cost more than that of the others. This is why I'll now not ask Pa for anything more, for example in the event of marriage, not so much as a single old cup or saucer." (ibid.)

He tries to shift the blame for his parents' negative reaction in advance to his brother: "Whether Pa and Ma remain calm will depend for 3/4 on what you say to them. If you voice an objection, the fat will be in the fire. If you say something like, stay calm, don't interfere, or if you manage one way or another to calm them, they'll stay calm." (ibid.) After Vincent's return from the hospital, long after he first said he would tell his parents, he is still muttering angrily about the negative response he expects from his parents -- but still defiantly determined to tell them. He makes it clear that he intends to tell them about Sien, not ask them. "It isn't in the least my intention to go in the same manner as last year to Pa and Ma to ask their advice or opinion, because it became clear to me then that there was a sharp difference in way of thinking and attitude to life. Nonetheless, it is my ardent desire to keep the peace and to convince Pa and Ma that it wouldn't be right if they were to turn against me, ... they are mistaken in their view that my approach to situations is so impractical as to make it necessary for them to 'guide' me." (JLB 244, 7/6/1882; emphasis in original.)

By the end of the first week of July, with the extended deadline for telling his parents expiring (i.e., Sien's return from the hospital), Vincent quickly backpedals yet again, arguing that Sien's health demanded waiting another "month or six weeks" -- "she mustn't be subjected to any emotions from without now, or be tense about anything for the time being, most decidedly not" (JLB 245, 7/6/1882-7/7/1882; emphasis in original). When his parents send money in mid-July, Vincent suffers a fit of guilt for continuing to keep them in the dark: "They mustn't do that any more, though. I know they need it themselves, and I say again that we can manage with the money from you, ... So I really would rather not have the money from Pa and Ma." (JLB 246, 7/15/1882-7/16/1882.) And he still holds out a delusional hope that they will accept his new wife and family ("when I speak to them about Sien they won't, I hope, immediately be against it but respond with good will" [ibid.]), and he claims that "relations have long been improving" with his father (JLB 247, 7/18/1882). It was this rare calm spot in his troubled relationship with his parents that Vincent was so eager to preserve and feared terribly would be destroyed by Tersteeg's untimely interference.

601. "the matter need" BVG 217, 7/19/1882: Vincent gives Theo elaborate instructions for how not to discuss the issue of Vincent's relationship with Sien while not actually denying it. Presumably, these lawyerly instructions (impossible in practice) were intended to deflect inquiries from their parents, and perhaps from Tersteeg.

Context:
BVG 217, 7/19/1882: "If people should speak to you about the affair, I think you might say that you and I are on sufficiently confidential terms to ensure your getting the necessary information from me, but that you do not think the matter need be discussed for the time being."
JLB 248, 7/19/1882: "If you're asked about the matter, I believe you can say that there's enough trust between you and me for you to get full information from me, but that you don't consider it necessary to discuss the matter for the time being."

602. fraternal longing BVG 216, 7/19/1882: Not surprisingly, Vincent frames much of his new plea for fraternal solidarity in terms of sibling rivalry with Tersteeg: as a choice between siding with him or siding with Tersteeg and the others who would "thwart" him.

Context:
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "There really is a sympathy between you and me in many things, and it seems to me, Theo, that all your trouble and all my trouble won't be in vain. You have always gone on helping me, and I've always gone on working and now feel new powers developing as I get better. You see, what exists between you and me is, I believe, more serious than that lecture from Tersteeg, and can't be spoiled by his meddling or that of others. Yet for the sake of peace and good order we must calmly put an end to this meddling. Just excuse me for being rather upset. For the woman and me it was the first awful hour since we came out of hospital. If you agree, we'll take no further notice of it, however, and not let ourselves be upset."

603. pleas for understanding BVG 216, 7/19/1882.

Context:
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "It's 10 to one that that means certain death if one has no money and isn't strong, but we'd prefer that to being parted."

604. "I want people" BVG 218, 7/21/1882. Vincent concedes that his art is far from hitting this lofty mark: "It seems pretentious to talk like this now, but that's why I want to push on" (JLB 249, 7/21/1882). One can only imagine how Theo responded to an ambition that could only have appeared delusional given Vincent's halting, amateur efforts so far.

Context:
JLB 249, 7/21/1882: "In short, I want to reach the point where people say of my work, that man feels deeply and that man feels subtly. Despite my so-called coarseness -- you understand -- perhaps precisely because of it."

605. "I should one day" BVG 218, 7/21/1882. Vincent continues in this strikingly poetic, but deeply self-abasing vein: "What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person -- someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well -- assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I'd like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I'm often in a mess, inside me there's still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge." (JLB 249, 7/21/1882.)

Context:
JLB 249, 7/21/1882: "I'd like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody."

606. arrival in early August This is the date Stolwijk and Thomson gives in their brief chronology of Theo's life, but we can find no definitive evidence to support it (Stolwijk and Thomson, p. 184). Vincent's letter after Theo's departure, dated August 5, can be read to suggest that Theo arrived on August 3 and left on August 4: "I had wanted to take you to the train the next morning -- but I thought you had already given me so much time that it would have been impolite if I had asked you for the following morning as well" (JLB 253, 8/5/1882; emphasis in original). The italicized phrases would seem to indicate that Theo left The Hague the morning of the previous day, August 4. Yet, it would be unusual for Vincent not to have written to thank his brother for his visit on the day of his departure, which we assume is also Stolwijk's inference. The opening sentence of the letter suggests as much: "Still very much under the impression of your visit" (ibid.).

There are two other pieces of circumstantial evidence. One is Vincent's report, a year later, that Theo spent "a few days" in Etten on his way to The Hague in August 1882 (JLB 370, 8/3/1883). The other is a letter from Dorus to Theo written on August 2 the following year in which he recalls Theo's visit to Etten in August 1882: "Last year at this time you were with us. Coming Sunday it will be a year ago that I gave my farewell sermon in Etten, and the Saturday thereafter we saw you leave us." (b2244 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 8/2/1883.) It is not clear if Dorus is speaking in terms of days of the month or in terms of the church calendar (i.e., the first Sunday in August). If the former, then Theo was in Etten at least by August 2 in 1882 and left on August 11. If the latter, then Theo was in Etten by August 3 and left on August 12. Although this does not tell us anything definitive about Theo's visit to The Hague, it does indicate that Theo returned to Etten after visiting Vincent; he did not go directly back to Paris. It may also explain why the visit was so brief: Theo wanted to maximize his time in Etten in order to help his parents finalize the move to Nuenen, which occurred, apparently, at almost the same time as his final departure from Etten on August 11 or 12.

Dorus's letter also makes it less likely that the trip to The Hague occurred any earlier than August 4. Assuming that Theo's vacation began on Sunday, July 30, one can construct various scenarios for his visit to The Hague, but all the reasonable permutations would fall within the parameters of an arrival on either August 3 or 4 and a departure on either August 4 or 5, with the preponderance of evidence falling on the later dates.

607. "my whole future" BVG 216, 7/19/1882.

Context:
BVG 216, 7/19/1882: "At least you know more about the matter than Tersteeg, but you know Sien too little to understand how much we love each other, and how well we get on together. I cannot repeat to you often enough, brother, how my whole future depends on it."
JLB 247, 7/18/1882: "I can't repeat too often, brother, how my whole future depends on this. ... You at least know more about the matter than Tersteeg, but you still know Sien too little to know how much we love each other and how well we get on together."

608. "Sien and the baby" BVG 220, 7/26/1882.

Context:
JLB 251, 7/26/1882: "Sien and the child are also well; they're getting stronger and I love them dearly."

609. "I shall draw" BVG 218, 7/21/1882: We have taken the liberty of splicing passages from two letters, written five days apart. On July 26, Vincent writes, "Sien and the child are also well; they're getting stronger and I love them dearly. I must have another go at the cradle ... entirely in watercolour." (JLB 251, 7/26/1882.) In the previous letter, he writes: "I'll draw the cradle, I hope, a hundred times apart from the one today. With persistence." (JLB 249, 7/21/1882; emphasis in original.) We believe the proximity and the consonance of the sentiments expressed justifies the substitution.

Context:
BVG 218, 7/21/1882: "I hope that by keeping hard at it I shall draw the little cradle another hundred times, besides what I did today."
JLB 249, 7/21/1882: " I'll draw the cradle, I hope, a hundred times apart from the one today. With persistence." (Emphasis in original.)

610. Theo brought presents BVG 308, 8/2/1883: The next summer, Vincent recalled Theo's trip in the summer of 1882. Theo apparently returned to his parents after visiting Vincent in The Hague. According to a later letter from Dorus, Theo arrived in Etten by August 2 and left either August 11 or August 12 (b2244 V/1982, ''Gogh, Theodorus van'' to ''Gogh, Theo van'', 8/2/1883). No doubt he extended his stay (and minimized his stay with Vincent) because his parents were finalizing their move to Nuenen, which occurred at almost precisely the same time Theo left Etten (ibid.).

Context:
JLB 370, 8/3/1883: "I'm most eager to know if you're planning to do the same as last year, first a few days at home and then straight to here."

611. from their parents BVG 222, 8/5/1882. After Theo left, Vincent wrote JLB 253, 8/5/1882.

Context:
JLB 253, 8/5/1882: "Well, old chap, many thanks for everything, ... Give Pa and Ma my warmest regards, thank them for what they gave you for me."

612. drawing paper BVG 222, 8/5/1882: After Theo left, however, Vincent found a paper he liked better and sent Theo a sample. Theo had brought the paper in response to a request from Theo in July (JLB 251, 7/26/1882).

Context:
JLB 253, 8/5/1882: "As you see, this sample has a grain as coarse as a piece of sailcloth. What you brought is a nicer colour and wonderful, for example, for studies of the sides of ditches and soils. However, I'm glad to have discovered this new batch."

613. and crayon
JLB 322, 3/2/1883: "Do you remember bringing me pieces of natural chalk last summer?" 614. for a walk BVG 222, 8/5/1882. A month later, Vincent writes: "This week I painted something which I believe may give some idea of the impression of Scheveningen as we saw it when we walked there together" (JLB 260, 9/3/1882).

Context:
JLB 253, 8/5/1882: "What we saw together at Scheveningen, sand -- sea -- sky -- is something I certainly hope to express one day."

615. "sand, sea" BVG 222, 8/5/1882. Vincent repeats this phrase word for word in another letter a week later: "I've tackled a piece of sand, sea and sky like we saw together at Scheveningen" (JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882).

Context:
BVG 222, 8/5/1882: "What we saw in Scheveningen together -- sand, sea and sky -- is something I certainly hope to express sometime."
JLB 253, 8/5/1882: "What we saw together at Scheveningen, sand -- sea -- sky -- is something I certainly hope to express one day."

616. to the Schenkweg BVG 224, 8/10/1882-8/12/1882: This appears to suggest that Theo spent only an hour at the apartment.

Context:
JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882: "I do wish that you could be back in the studio for just an hour -- that would be the best way to tell you how it turned out."

617. "Do not marry her" BVG 261, 1/21/1883.

Context:
BVG 261, 1/21/1883: "Then you said to me, 'Do not marry her,' and I admitted then that circumstances were such that it was better not to talk about it for the time being."
JLB 301, 1/13/1883: "You said to me then, don't marry her, and I conceded to you that the circumstances were such that there was good reason not to speak of that for the time being."

618. for another year BVG 222, 8/5/1882.

Context:
JLB 253, 8/5/1882: "It's wonderful to have the prospect of a year of steady work without disasters, and thanks to what you gave me I now also have a new horizon in painting."

619. with their parents BVG 222, 8/5/1882: After Theo left, Vincent wrote, confirming their understanding. Apparently, in return for Vincent's dropping his pursuit of parental acceptance, Theo promised not only to continue his support but also to lobby their parents on his behalf. That is the gist of this passage from a letter later in August: "For my part I do indeed appreciate them [Father and Mother], only I fear that what you have now reassured them about for the time being would come back, especially if they saw me again" (JLB 259, 8/26/1882; emphasis added). This appears to refer to Vincent's concern, as expressed a month earlier, that his parents "believe that I was someone who only dreamed and didn't know how to act" (JLB 244, 7/6/1882).

Context:
JLB 253, 8/5/1882: "Give Pa and Ma my warmest regards, thank them for what they gave you for me, and tell them I'll write soon -- but as agreed not about special matters" (emphasis added).

620. next six months The evidence of an agreement not to mention Sien may be circumstantial, but it is nevertheless overwhelming and irrefutable. There is simply no other way to explain the astonishing disappearance of Sien from Vincent's letters starting immediately after Theo's visit to The Hague in early August 1882. Supporting the inference are a number of instances thereafter in which Vincent self-consciously respects this agreement. The effort is evidenced starting in his second letter after Theo's visit: "I tried [drawing] back in January but that came to a halt -- the reason for stopping, apart from a few other things, was that I was still too hesitant when drawing. ... So by the time you next come to see me I would like the studio to have become a real painter's studio. The fact that I couldn't get going in January -- you know that there were various reasons for that." (JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882; emphasis added.) We believe both of these are references to Sien that Vincent has rather ostentatiously expurgated. When she does reappear in the letters in January 1883, Vincent provides a suggestion of the agreement with his brother, although we suspect it is a face-saving one: "You said to me then, don't marry her, and I conceded to you that the circumstances were such that there was good reason not to speak of that for the time being. And now you know that I haven't spoken further of that." (JLB 301, 1/13/1883; emphasis added.) 303 621. "to work for" BVG 221, 8/1/1882. There is an argument to be made that this volte face in Vincent's attitude on salability -- one of many throughout his career -- was at least in part attributable to Zola, whose books Vincent began consuming en masse during his convalescence in early July (JLB 244, 7/6/1882). Passages like this one from Vincent's last letter before Theo's arrival in early August (JLB 252, 7/31/1882) strongly suggest the new influence of Zola on his thinking about art in general and specifically on his belief in the corrupting influence of commercial values on the artistic enterprise. "As for the commercial value of my work, I have no pretensions other than that I would be very surprised if in time my work doesn't sell as well as that of others. Whether that happens now or later, well, I'm not bothered about that too much. Just working faithfully from nature and with persistence seems to me a sure way, and one that can't end up with nothing." (JLB 252, 7/31/1882, emphasis added and in original.)

In another passage, Zola may be the source of Vincent's new condemnation of art dealing as "speculation," a favorite Zola bête noire (and a curse of the entire fictional Rougon clan): "Making an effort to find art lovers and arouse their love is something else, and of course permissible. But it mustn't become a speculation." (ibid.) When Vincent claims "[I] am really just a friend of nature, of study, of work -- and of people chiefly," he is speaking as a character straight out of Zola, or as the author, in terms that bear no actual relationship to Vincent himself, his past or his present experience (ibid.). This is entirely Vincent as he imagines himself. One could see this sudden resort to Zola's liberal naturalism as yet another of Vincent's many attempts to escape the accountability that his brother is seeking to impose on his artistic project -- an indication of his continuing and understandable insecurity about his art in the face of repeated setbacks.

Context:
BVG 221, 8/1/1882: " To work for the market is in my opinion not exactly the right way, but on the contrary involves deceiving the amateurs."
JLB 252, 7/31/1882: " But working with an eye to saleability isn't exactly the right way in my view, but rather is cheating art lovers."

622. dismissed "speculation" BVG 221, 8/1/1882. Vincent not only expresses disdain for whether or not his work sells -- but insists that for him to be more concerned with salability would hurt the work: "Making an effort to find art lovers and arouse their love is something else, and of course permissible. But it mustn't become a speculation that might well go wrong and would certainly waste time that ought to be spent on work." (JLB 252, 7/31/1882.) The statement that it was only "permissible" for artists to appeal to buyers who love their art must have struck Vincent's dealer brother as hopelessly naïve or delusionally idealistic, or both.

Context:
BVG 221, 8/1/1882: "But it must not become a speculation, that would perhaps turn out wrong and would certainly cause one to lose time that ought to be spent on the work itself."
JLB 252, 7/31/1882: "But it mustn't become a speculation that might well go wrong and would certainly waste time that ought to be spent on work."

623. "deceiving amateurs" BVG 221, 8/1/1882. We have slightly altered the translation.

Context:
BVG 221, 8/1/1882: "To work for the market is in my opinion not exactly the right way, but on the contrary involves deceiving the amateurs."
JLB 252, 7/31/1882: "But working with an eye to saleability isn't exactly the right way in my view, but rather is cheating art lovers."

624. away from black-and-white BVG 223, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882: This makes it clear that Theo's visit marked an abrupt shift of emphasis away from black-and-white before Vincent would have otherwise made it. Of course, the passage contains a face-saving misrepresentation of Vincent's true mindset prior to Theo's arrival: "not a day passed without my thinking about it along these lines." That Vincent resisted Theo's push to move his concentration away from figure drawing can be inferred from the fact that when Theo visited, Vincent apparently gave him a book on Gavarni, the great French illustrator (JLB 260, 9/3/1882).

Context:
JLB 254, 8/5/1882-8/6/1882: "It's as a result of your visit that I'm moving on to this, but before you came not a day passed without my thinking about it along these lines. But I would have gone on for longer with just black and white and the outline." (Emphasis added.)

625. on painting BVG 222, 8/5/1882. Immediately after Theo leaves, Vincent tries to portray this imperative as consistent with his plan all along. But this seems highly doubtful given his reaffirmations of the primacy of drawing and disparagements of painting immediately before Theo's arrival (e.g., "And if I got into debt or surrounded myself with canvases and papers daubed all over with paint without being sure of my drawing, my studio would quickly become a kind of hell, like a studio I once saw that seemed like that to me" [JLB 252, 7/31/1882]), and the completely contrary insistence afterwards that painting was always his plan. "It's wonderful to have the prospect of a year of steady work without disasters, and thanks to what you gave me I now also have a new horizon in painting. I regard myself as privileged above a thousand others in that you remove so many barriers in my way." (JLB 253, 8/5/1882.)

Context:
JLB 253, 8/5/1882: "Still very much under the impression of your visit, and more than a little pleased that I can go on painting with new vigour, I'm writing you a few words."

626. excuse for inaction BVG 221, 8/1/1882. This is only one of a number of excuses Vincent uses in this letter: (1) He was already using "color" (i.e., black-and-white is color); (2) Drawing is more important than color; (3) Other painters move on to paint too soon, without studying drawing enough; (4) Painting on the basis of a bad drawing wastes money; and (5) He would be miserable if he tried to paint before he was ready.

Context:
JLB 252, 7/31/1882: "And I hope you'll understand that if I go on just drawing, I do that for two reasons. Because at all costs I want to acquire a sure hand when drawing above all else and, second, because painting materials and watercolours entail considerable expense for which there's no return in the early stage -- and these costs are multiplied twice and ten times if you work on the basis of a drawing that isn't yet sufficiently correct."

627. Theo gave him extra money BVG 304, 7/24/1883-7/25/1883. Vincent, of course, had to use some of this money to pay existing bills.

Context:
JLB 366, 7/24/1883: "When you were here last summer, I had money from you to enable me to make a big effort. From that I had to pay Stam and Leurs [artists' supply stores in The Hague], and I made some extra purchases and paid for them immediately and started work."

628. Vincent send him proof

BVG 230, 9/11/1882. About a month later, Vincent enclosed in a letter (JLB 262, 9/11/1882) two little watercolors (Four People on a Bench [F None JH 195] and Bench with Four Persons (and Baby) [F 951 JH 197]) for Theo's approval, in fulfillment of their August agreement. One of the works is referenced in the accompanying letter: "As you know, when you were here you said that I should do my best to send you a drawing in the genre known as 'saleable.' ... Now I'd very much like to hear from you whether in your view this little drawing is more or less in the spirit of what we discussed. I'm sending it to you because I wouldn't like you to think that this wasn't on my mind." A week later, Vincent again refers specifically to the agreement: "When you were here we talked about that drawing that I was to send you -- further to which I've already sent you that small bench [one of the watercolors in letter JLB 262, 9/11/1882] ... to show you that I do indeed plan to carry on working in that genre." (JLB 265, 9/17/1882-9/18/1882.) Given the timing of Vincent's first offering about a month after Theo's visit, it is possible that their agreement was explicit as to when Vincent would send Theo a sample, despite Vincent's use of the vague "someday" in BVG 230, 9/11/1882. A reference in an earlier letter also suggests that the agreement was for Vincent to send a sample in a month: "I'll be able to occupy myself exclusively with [painting] for a while. I believe that after a month of regular painting the studio will look completely different. Hoping that this will please you." (JLB 255, 8/10/1882-8/11/1882.)

Context:
JLB 262, 9/11/1882: "Now I'd very much like to hear from you whether in your view this little drawing is more or less in the spirit of what we discussed. I'm sending it to you because I wouldn't like you to think that this wasn't on my mind -- but later I hope to send you something better."

629. "progress in a direction" BVG 221, 8/1/1882.

Context:
BVG 221, 8/1/1882: "Of the drawings which I will show you now I think only this: I hope they will prove to you that I am not remaining stationary in my work, but progress in a direction that is reasonable."
JLB 252, 7/31/1882: "As to the drawings I'm going to show you now, I think only this: that they will, I hope, serve as evidence that I'm not stuck on one level but am moving in a direction that is reasonable."

630. he often couldn't BVG 229, 9/9/1882. In a letter a few days later, he tells Van Rappard the same thing, only without the complaint about sleeplessness: "I've recently found some things by [Auguste André Lançon] Lancon -- a soup distribution, a gathering of rag-pickers, gang of snow-shovellers -- which made me get up at night to take another look at them, that's how strong an impression they made on me" (JLB 263, 9/12/1882-9/17/1882).

Context:
JLB 261, 9/9/1882: "If I can't sleep at night, which often happens, I always rummage among the woodcuts with new enjoyment."

631. "Every time I feel" BVG R16, 10/31/1882.

Context:
BVG R16, 10/31/1882: "I assure you, every time I feel a little out of sorts, I find in my collection of wood engravings a stimulus to set to work with renewed zest."
JLB 276, 10/29/1882: "I assure you that whenever I'm a little downhearted, my collection of woodcuts gives me fresh heart to set to work myself."

632. "I always regret" BVG 522, 8/13/1888: In 1888, Vincent stated this in the form of a question. Even at this late date, he did not recognize that his inability or unwillingness to separate the real from the depicted was the driving force of his art -- although he did apparently recognize that it separated him from other artists.

Context:
BVG, 522, 8/13/1888: "Why am I so little an artist that I always regret that the statue and the picture are not alive?"
JLB 659, 8/12/1888: "Why am I so little an artist that I always regret that the statue, the painting, aren't alive?"