Lust for Life

His love for nature had not died; it was simply that he no longer felt the desperate need to fling himself at a scene and re-create it. He was burned out. During the whole month of June he painted only five canvases. He was weary, unspeakably weary. He felt empty, drained, washed out, as though the hundreds upon hundreds of drawings and paintings that had flowed out of him in the past ten years had each taken a tiny spark of his life.

At last he went on working only because he felt he owed it to Theo to capitalize on the years of investment. And yet, when he realized, in the very middle of a painting, that Theo’s house was already jammed with more canvases than could be sold in ten lifetimes, a gentle nausea would arise within him, and he would push away his easel with distaste.

He knew that another seizure was due in July, at the end of the three month period. He worried for fear he would do something irrational while the attack was upon him, and ostracize himself in the village. He had not made any definite financial arrangements with Theo when he left Paris, and he worried about how much money he was going to receive. The alternating heartbreak and rapture in Gachet’s eyes was driving Vincent’s gorge up, day by day.

And to cap the climax, Theo’s child became ill.

The anxiety over his namesake almost drove Vincent, frantic. He stood it as long as he could, then took a train to Paris. His sudden arrival at the Cité Pigalle heightened the confusion. Theo was looking pale and ill. Vincent did his best to comfort him.

“It isn’t only the little one I’m worrying about, Vincent,” he admitted at last.

“What then, Theo?”

“It’s Valadon. He has threatened to ask for my resignation.”

“Why, Theo, he couldn’t! You’ve been with Goupils for sixteen years!”

“I know. But he says I’ve been neglecting the regular trade for the Impressionists. I don’t sell very many of them, and when I do, the prices are low. Valadon claims my shop has been losing money for the past year.”

“But could he really put you out?”

“Why not? The Van Gogh interest has been completely sold.”

“What would you do, Theo? Open a shop of your own?”

“How could I? I had a little money saved, but I spent it on my wedding, and the baby.”

“If only you hadn’t thrown away those thousands of francs on me . . .”

“Now, Vincent, please. That had nothing to do with it. You know I . . .”

“But what will you do, Theo? There’s Jo and the little one.”

“Yes. Well . . . I don’t know . . . I’m only worrying about the baby now.”

Vincent stayed around Paris a number of days. He kept out of the apartment as much as possible, so as not to disturb the child. Paris and his old friends excited him. He felt a slow, gripping fever arise within him. When little Vincent recovered somewhat, he took the train back to the quiet of Auvers.

But the quiet did him no good. He was tormented by his worries. What would happen to him if Theo lost his job? Would he be thrown out into the streets like some vile beggar? And for that matter, what would happen to Jo and the baby? What if the baby died? He knew that Theo’s frail health could never stand the blow. Who was going to support them all while Theo searched for a new job? And where was Theo going to find strength for the search?

He sat for hours in the dark café of Ravoux’s. It reminded him of the Café Lamartine, with its odours of stale beer and acrid tobacco smoke. He jabbed around aimlessly with the billiard cue, trying to hit the discoloured balls. He had no money to buy liquor. He had no money to buy paints and canvases. He could not ask Theo for anything at such a crucial moment. And he was deathly afraid that when he had his seizure in July, he would do something insane, something to cause poor Theo even more worry and expense.

He tried working, but it was no good. He had painted everything he wanted to paint. He had said everything he wanted to say. Nature no longer stirred him to a creative passion, and he knew that the best part of him was already dead.

The days passed. The middle of July came, and with it the hot weather. Theo, his head just about to be chopped off by Valadon, frantic with worry over his baby and the doctor bills, managed to squeeze out fifty francs to send to his brother. Vincent turned them over to Ravoux. That would keep him until almost the end of July. And after that . . . what? He could not expect any more money from Theo.

He lay on his back under the hot sun in the cornfields by the little cemetery. He walked along the banks of the Oise, smelling the cool water and the foliage that lined its banks. He went to Gachet’s for dinner and stuffed himself with food that he could neither taste nor digest. While the doctor raved on excitedly about Vincent’s paintings, Vincent said to himself,

“That’s not me he’s talking about. Those can’t be my pictures. I never painted anything. I don’t even recognize my own signature on the canvas. I can’t remember putting one single brush stroke on any of them. They must have been done by some other man!”