“‘L’Oeuvre’ is a bad book,” said Cezanne, “and a false one. Besides, it is the worst piece of treachery that has ever been committed in the name of friendship. The book is about a painter, Monsieur Van Gogh. About me! Emile Zola is my oldest friend. We were raised together in Aix. We went to school together. I came to Paris only because he was here. We were closer than brothers, Emile and I. All during our youth we planned how, side by side, we would become great artists. And now he does this to me.”
“What has he done to you?” asked Vincent.
“Ridiculed me. Mocked me. Made me a laughing stock to all Paris. Day after day I told him about my theories of light, my theories of representing solids under surface appearances, my ideas of a revolutionary palette. He listened to me, he encouraged me, he drew me out. And all the time he was only gathering material for his book, to show what a fool I was.”
He drained his wine glass, turned back to Vincent and continued, his small, sour eyes smouldering with passionate hatred.
“Zola has combined three of us in that book, Monsieur Van Gogh; myself, Bazille, and a poor, wretched lad who used to sweep out Manet’s studio. The boy had artistic ambitions, but finally hanged himself in despair. Zola paints me as a visionary, another misguided wretch who thinks he is revolutionizing art, but who doesn’t paint in the conventional manner simply because he hasn’t enough talent to paint at all. He makes me hang myself from the scaffolding of my masterpiece, because in the end I realize that what I mistook for genius was only insane daubing. Up against me he puts another artist from Aix, a sentimental sculptor who turns out the most hackneyed, academic trash, and makes him a great artist.”
“That’s really amusing,” said Gauguin, “when you remember that Zola was the first to champion Edouard Manet’s revolution in painting. Emile has done more for Impressionist painting than any man alive.”
“Yes, he worshipped Manet because Edouard overthrew the academicians. But when I try to go beyond the Impressionists, he calls me a fool and an idiot. As for Emile, he is a mediocre intelligence and a detestable friend. I had to stop going to his house long ago. He lives like a damned bourgeois. Rich rugs on the floor, vases on the mantelpiece, servants, a desk of carved and sculptured wood for him to write his masterpieces. Phew! He’s more middle class than Manet ever dared to be. They were brother bourgeois under the skin, those two; that’s why they got along so well together. Just because I come from the same town as Emile, and he knew me as a child, he thinks I can’t possibly do any important work.”
“I heard that he wrote a
“Emile tore it up, Gauguin, just before it was to have gone to the printers.”
“But why?” asked Vincent.
“He was afraid the critics would think he was sponsoring me only because I was an old friend. If he had published that
“Is there any Pommard left in that bottle, Cezanne?” asked Gauguin. “Thanks. What I have against Zola is that he makes his washerwomen talk like real washerwomen, and when he leaves them he forgets to change his style.”
“Well, I’ve had enough of Paris. I’m going back to Aix and spend the rest of my life there. There’s a hill rising up from the valley that overlooks the whole country-side. There’s clear, bright sunlight in Provence, and colour. What colour! I know a plot of ground near the top of the hill that’s for sale. It’s covered with pine trees. I’ll build a studio there, and plant an apple orchard. And I’ll build a big stone wall around my ground. I’ll mix broken bottles into the cement at the top of the wall to keep the world out. And I’ll never leave Provence again, never, never!”
“A hermit, eh?” murmured Gauguin into his glass of Pommard.
“Yes, a hermit.”
“The hermit of Aix. What a charming title. We’d better be getting on to the Cafe Batignolles. Everyone will be there by now.”
