Leaving Van Gogh by Carol Wallace Read Free Book Online

him, “I am confident. You have been through a difficult ordeal, but you have recovered. You traveled here on your own without incident. Paris was too noisy, and you had the good sense to leave. This is an excellent sign. You must, you must come to me if you feel any change. A new sense of difficulty, perhaps. Melancholy. Despair. Trouble sleeping.” He was buttoning his cuffs, head down. “I do not rule these things out, but they would surprise me. You are perfectly lucid, your reasoning is intact, your senses are undisturbed. Still, I can help you if you require it.”
    “And you believe I should continue to work?” he asked.
    “Oh, yes,” I said, “you must! I have seen many alienated patients improve by working, though it was usually labor of a routine kind, repetitive. Your work is—” I paused and caught his eye again. I tried to make my voice as impressive as possible. “If I understand you at all, Monsieur van Gogh, your painting is the reason you continue to live, is it not?”
    He nodded, his eyes still on mine, his hands hanging at his sides.
    “Then paint,” I added quietly. “Paint and live. And come to me if you feel disturbed.” I put my hand on his shoulder and turned him to face the stairs. “Now let us find you a place to stay.”

T hree

    I WALKED V INCENT down the steps to the gate and watched him trudge along the street, back toward the train station. He did, I had to admit, make a conspicuous figure. In Auvers we have always been accustomed to painters with their rucksacks and collapsible easels and stools, often settled where you least expect them, at a turn in the road or in the hollow of a meadow. I like to think that, in painting our landscape, they become part of it. But even from behind, Vincent’s shambling gait, his battered boots, and his coarse straw hat made him an unusual and unmistakable figure in Auvers.
    I later learned that Vincent had chosen to lodge at the Auberge Ravoux, across from the mairie . It was the cheapest inn the town offered; Vincent was very careful with the money that Theo sent him. He had made the right choice, for Ravoux’s customers were working men, unlikely to be disturbed by a painter’s eccentricities.
    The same was not true of Madame Chevalier, who was waiting for me at the front door when I had seen Vincent on his way. The force of her opinions did not match her small size.
    “And who was that?” she demanded. Without waiting for an answer, she went on, “If he is to come back, you must tell him to come to the back door with his bundles. We can’t have word getting around the village that peddlers come to the front like guests.”
    “But he is a guest,” I said mildly. “He is a painter, named Vincent van Gogh, and I hope we will see him often. I asked him to stay for luncheon today, but he could not.”
    I said this only to tease her. Madame Chevalier was a wonderful cook, but she hated being surprised by guests.
    “Vincent van what?” she retorted. “Van Goog? Dreadful name! I’ll never be able to say it. And if he’s going to paint here, you must tell him that I don’t want his oil paints all over the place. Outside, that’s where they stay, or in your studio, Doctor. Now come and sit down, Marguerite and Paul have been waiting for you. They want to know all about him.” I obeyed her, of course.
    It had been some time since an artist had visited us. Pissarro’s move away from Pontoise in 1882 had limited my country contacts with artists. I saw them in Paris, at galleries and cafés, but I realized that Vincent’s presence in Auvers could be stimulating for all of us. I imagined lively conversations with him about art and literature. I might even paint with him, as I had with Cézanne and Pissarro. For many years now Auvers had been a kind of refuge for me. But the cultural life there was limited.
    I began to wonder very much what Vincent van Gogh’s painting looked like. The man had struck me so positively, with his stoical