Lust for Life полностью

“There! Now tell me this one isn’t good! Tell me that my palette isn’t improving! Look at that sunlight effect! Look at this . . .”

Theo had to choose between telling a lie and spending a pleasant evening with an affable brother, or telling the truth and being pursued violently about the house until dawn. Theo was frightfully tired. He could not afford to tell the truth. But he did.

“When were you at Durand-Ruel’s last?” he demanded, wearily.

“What does that matter?”

“Answer my question.”

“Well,” said Vincent sheepishly, “yesterday afternoon.”

“Do you know, Vincent, there are almost five thousand painters in Paris trying to imitate Edouard Manet? And most of them do it better than you.”

The battleground was too small for either of them to survive.

Vincent tried a new trick. He threw all the Impressionists into one lone canvas.

“Delightful,” murmured Theo that night. “We’ll name this one, Recapitulation. We’ll label everything on the canvas. That tree is a genuine Gauguin. The girl in the corner is undoubtedly a Toulouse-Lautrec. I would say that your sunlight on the stream is Sisley, the colour, Monet, the leaves, Pissarro, the air, Seurat, and the central figure, Manet.”

Vincent fought bitterly. He worked hard all day, and when Theo came home at night, he was chastised like a little child. Theo had to sleep in the living room, so Vincent could not paint there at night. His quarrels with Theo left him too excited and wrought up to sleep. He spent the long hours haranguing his brother. Theo battled with him until he fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, the light still burning, and Vincent gesticulating excitedly. The only thing that kept Theo going was the thought that soon they would be in the Rue Lepic, where he would have a bedroom to himself and a good strong lock on the door.

When Vincent tired of arguing about his own canvases, he filled Theo’s nights, with turbulent discussions of art, the art business, and the wretched business of being an artist.

“Theo, I can’t understand it,” he complained. “Here you are the manager of one of the most important art galleries in Paris, and you won’t even exhibit one of your own brother’s canvases.”

“Valadon won’t let me.”

“Have you tried?”

“A thousand times.”

“All right, we’ll admit that my paintings are not good enough. But what about Seurat? And Gauguin? And Lautrec?”

“Every time they bring me new canvases, I beg Valadon to let me hang them on the entresol.

“Are you master in that gallery, or is someone else?”

“Alas, I only work there.”

“Then you ought to get out. It’s degrading, simply degrading. Theo, I wouldn’t stand for it. I’d leave them.”

“Let’s talk it over at breakfast, Vincent. I’ve had a hard day and I want to go to sleep.”

“I don’t want to wait until breakfast. I want to talk about it right now. Theo, what good does it do to exhibit Manet and Degas? They’re already being accepted. They’re beginning to sell. It’s the younger men you have to fight for now.”

“Give me time! Perhaps in another three years . . .”

“No! We can’t wait three years. We’ve got to have action now. Oh, Theo, why don’t you throw up your job and open an art gallery of your own? Just think, no more Valadon, no more Bouguereau, no more Henner!”

“That would take money, Vincent. I haven’t saved anything.”

“We’d get the money somehow.”

“The art business is slow to develop, you know.”

“Let it be slow. We’ll work night and day until we’ve established you.”

“And what would we do in the meanwhile? We have to eat.”

“Are you reproaching me for not earning my own living?”

“For goodness’ sake, Vincent, go to bed. I’m exhausted.”

“I won’t go to bed. I want to know the truth. Is that the only reason you don’t leave Goupils? Because you have to support me? Come on, tell the truth. ‘I’m a millstone around your neck. I hold you down. I make you keep your job. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be free.”

“If only I were a little bit bigger, or a little bit stronger, I’d hand you a sound thrashing. As it is, I think I’ll hire Gauguin to come in and do it. My job is with Goupils, Vincent, now and always. Your job is painting, now and always. Half of my work at Goupils belongs to you; half of your painting belongs to me. Now get off my bed and let me go to sleep, or I’ll call a gendarme!”

The following evening Theo handed Vincent an envelope and said, “If you’re not doing anything tonight, we might go to this party.”

“Who’s giving it?”

“Henri Rousseau. Take a look at the invitation.”

There were two verses of a simple poem and some hand-painted flowers on the card.

“Who is he?” asked Vincent.