Lust for Life

He wanted to say good-bye. In spite of all, it had been a good world that he had lived in. As Gauguin said, “besides the poison, there is the antidote.” And now, leaving the world, he wanted to say good-bye to it, say good-bye to all those friends who had helped mould his life; to Ursula, whose contempt had wrenched him out of a conventional life and made him an outcast; to Mendes da Costa, who had made him believe that ultimately he would express himself, and that expression would justify his life; to Kay Vos, whose “No, never! never!” had been written in acid on his soul; to Madame Denis, Jacques Verney and Henri Decrucq, who had helped him love the despised ones of the earth; to the Reverend Pietersen, whose kindness had transcended Vincent’s ugly clothes and boorish manners; to his mother and father, who had loved him as best they could; to Christine, the only wife with which fate had seen fit to bless him; to Mauve, who had been his master for a few sweet weeks; to Weissenbruch and De Bock, his first painter friends; to his Uncles Vincent, Jan, Cornelius Marius, and Stricker, who had labelled him the black sheep of the Van Gogh family; to Margot, the only woman who had ever loved him, and who had tried to kill herself for that love; to all his painter friends in Paris; Lautrec, who had been shut up in an asylum again, to die; Georges Seurat, dead at thirty-one from overwork; Paul Gauguin, a mendicant in Brittany; Rousseau, rotting in his hole near the Bastille; Cezanne, a bitter recluse on a hilltop in Aix; to Père Tanguy and Roulin, who had shown him the salt in the simple souls of the earth; to Rachel and Doctor Rey, who had been kind to him with the kindness he needed; to Aurier and Doctor Gachet, the only two men in the world who had thought him a great painter, and last of all, to his good brother Theo, long suffering, long loving, best and dearest of all possible brothers.

But words had never been his medium. He would have to paint good-bye.

One cannot paint good-bye.

He turned his face upward to the sun. He pressed the revolver into his side. He pulled the trigger. He sank down, burying his face in the rich, pungent loam of the field, a more resilient earth returning to the womb of its mother.

4

FOUR HOURS LATER he staggered through the gloom of the café. Madame Ravoux followed him to his room and saw blood on his clothes. She ran at once for Doctor Gachet.

“Oh, Vincent, Vincent, what have you done!” groaned Gachet, when he entered the room.

“I think I have bungled it; what do you say?”

Gachet examined the wound.

“Oh, Vincent, my poor old friend, how unhappy you must have been to do this! Why didn’t I know? Why should you want to leave us when we all love you so? Think of the beautiful pictures you have still to paint for the world.”

“Will you be so kind as to give me my pipe from my waistcoat pocket?”

“But certainly, my friend.”

He loaded the pipe with tobacco, then placed it between Vincent’s teeth.

“A light, if you please,” said Vincent.

“But certainly, my friend.”

Vincent puffed quietly at his pipe.

“Vincent, it is Sunday and your brother is not at the shop. What is his home address?”

“That I will not give you.”

“But, Vincent, you must! It is urgent that we reach him!”

“Theo’s Sunday must not be disturbed. He is tired and worried. He needs the rest.”

No amount of persuasion could get the Cite Pigalle address out of Vincent. Doctor Gachet stayed with him until late that night, tending the wound. Then he went home for a little rest, leaving his son to care for Vincent.

Vincent lay there wide-eyed all night, never uttering a word to Paul. He kept filling his pipe and smoking it constantly.

When Theo arrived at Goupils the following morning, he found Gachet’s telegram awaiting him. He caught the first train for Pontoise, then dashed in a carriage to Auvers.

“Well, Theo,” said Vincent.

Theo dropped on his knees by the side of the bed and took Vincent in his arms like a little child. He could not speak.

When the doctor arrived, Theo led him outside to the corridor. Gachet shook his head sadly.

“There is no hope, my friend. I cannot operate to remove the bullet, for he is too weak. If he were not made of iron he would have died in the fields.”

All through the long day Theo sat by his bed, holding Vincent’s hand. When nightfall came, and they were left alone in the room, they began to speak quietly of their childhood in the Brabant.

“Do you remember the mill at Ryswyk, Vincent?”

“It was a nice old mill, wasn’t it, Theo?”

“We used to walk by the path along the stream, and plan our lives.”

“And when we played in the high corn, in midsummer, you used to hold my hand, just as you’re doing now. Remember, Theo?”

“Yes, Vincent.”

“When I was in the hospital at Aries, I used to think often about Zundert. We had a nice childhood, Theo, you and I. We used to play in the garden behind the kitchen, in the shade of the acacias, and Mother would make us cheese bakes for lunch.”

“That seems so long ago, Vincent.”