Lust for Life

As a young chap he had been slightly morose and had avoided companionship. People had thought him queer, a bit eccentric. But Ursula had changed his nature completely. She had made him want to be agreeable and popular; she had brought him out of himself and helped him to see the goodness in the ordinary pattern of daily life.

At six o’clock the store closed. Mr. Obach stopped Vincent on his way out. “I had a letter from your Uncle Vincent Van Gogh about you,” he said. “He wanted to know how you were coming on. I was happy to tell him that you are one of the best clerks in the store.”

“It was very good of you to say that, sir.”

“Not at all. After your summer vacation I want you to leave the back room and come forward into the etchings and lithographs.”

“That means a great deal to me at this moment, sir, because I . . . I’m going to be married!”

“Really? This is news. When is it to take place?”

“This summer, I suppose.” He hadn’t thought of the date before.

“Well, my boy, that’s splendid. You just had an increase the first of the year, but when you come back from your wedding trip I dare say we can manage another.”

3

I’LL GET THE picture for you, Mademoiselle Ursula,” said Vincent after dinner, pushing back his chair.

Ursula was wearing a modishly embroidered dress of verdigris faye. “Did the artist write something nice for me?” she asked.

“Yes. If you’ll get a lamp I’ll hang it in the kindergarten for you.”

She pursed her lips to a highly kissable moue and looked at him sideways. “I must help Mother. Shall we make it in a half hour?”

Vincent rested his elbows on the chiffonier in his room and gazed into the mirror. He had rarely thought about his appearance; in Holland such things had not seemed important. He had noticed that in comparison to the English his face and head were ponderous. His eyes were buried in deep crevices of horizontal rock; his nose was high ridged, broad and straight as a shinbone; his dome-like forehead was as high as the distance from his thick eyebrows to the sensuous mouth; his jaws were wide and powerful, his neck a bit squat and thick, and his massive chin a living monument to Dutch character.

He turned away from the mirror and sat idly on the edge of the bed. He had been brought up in an austere home. He had never loved a girl before; he had never even looked at one or engaged in the casual banter between the sexes. In his love for Ursula there was nothing of passion or desire. He was young; he was an idealist; he was in love for the first time.

He glanced at his watch. Only five minutes had passed. The twenty-five minutes that stretched ahead seemed interminable. He drew a note from his brother Theo out of his mother’s letter and reread it. Theo was four years younger than Vincent and was now taking Vincent’s place in Goupils in The Hague. Theo and Vincent, like their father Theodorus and Uncle Vincent, had been favourite brothers all through their youth.

Vincent picked up a book, rested some paper on it, and wrote Theo a note. From the top drawer of the chiffonier he drew out a few rough sketches that he had made along the Thames Embankment and put them into an envelope for Theo along with a photograph of Young Girl with a Sword, by Jacquet.

“My word,” he exclaimed aloud, “I’ve forgotten all about Ursula!” He looked at his watch; he was already a quarter of an hour late. He snatched up a comb, tried to straighten out the tangle of wavy red hair, took Caesar de Cock’s picture from the table, and flung open the door.

“I thought you had forgotten me,” Ursula said as he came into the parlour. She was pasting together some paper toys for her poupons. “Did you bring my picture? May I see it?”

“I would like to put it up before you look. Did you fix a lamp?”

“Mother has it.”

When he returned from the kitchen she gave him a scarf of blue marine to wrap about her shoulders. He thrilled to the silken touch of it. In the garden there was the smell of apple blossoms. The path was dark and Ursula put the ends of her fingers lightly on the sleeve of his rough, black coat. She stumbled once, gripped his arm more tightly and laughed in high glee at her own clumsiness. He did not understand why she thought it funny to trip, but he liked to watch her body carry the laughter down the dark path. He held open the door of the kindergarten for her and as she passed, her delicately moulded face almost brushing his, she looked deep into his eyes and seemed to answer his question before he asked it.

He set the lamp down on the table. “Where would you like me to hang the picture?” he asked.

“Over my desk, don’t you think?”

There were perhaps fifteen low chairs and tables in the room of what had formerly been a summer house. At one end was a little platform supporting Ursula’s desk. He and Ursula stood side by side, groping for the right position for the picture. Vincent was nervous; he dropped the pins as fast as he tried to stick them into the wall. She laughed at him in a quiet, intimate tone.