Lust for Life полностью

NEARLY EVERYONE WAS there. Lautrec had a pile of saucers in front of him high enough to rest his chin on. Georges Seurat was chatting quietly with Anquetin, a lean, lanky painter who was trying to combine the method of the Impressionists with that of the Japanese prints. Henri Rousseau was taking cookies out of his pocket and dipping them into a cafe au lait, while Theo carried on an animated discussion with two of the more modern Parisian critics.

Batignolles had formerly been a suburb at the entrance of the Boulevard Clichy, and it was here that Edouard Manet had gathered the kindred spirits of Paris about him. Before Manet’s death, the Ecole des Batignolles was in the habit of meeting twice a week at the café. Legros, Fantin-Latour, Courbet, Renoir, all had met there and worked out their theories of art, but now the Ecole had been taken over by the younger men.

Cezanne saw Emile Zola. He walked to a far table, ordered a coffee, and sat aloof from the crowd. Gauguin introduced Vincent to Zola and then dropped into a chair alongside of Toulouse-Lautrec. Zola and Vincent were left alone at their table.

“I saw you come in with Paul Cezanne, Monsieur Van Gogh. No doubt he said something to you about me?”

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“I’m afraid your book has wounded him very deeply.”

Zola sighed and pushed the table out from the leather cushioned bench to give his huge paunch more room.

“Have you ever heard of the Schewininger cure?” he asked. “They say if a man doesn’t drink anything with his meals, he can lose thirty pounds in three months.”

“I haven’t heard of it.”

“It hurt me very deeply to write that book about Paul Cezanne, but every word of it is true. You are a painter. Would you falsify a portrait of a friend simply because it made him unhappy? Of course you wouldn’t. Paul is a splendid chap. For years he was my dearest friend. But his work is simply ludicrous. You know we are very tolerant at my house, Monsieur, but when my friends come, I must lock Paul’s canvases in a cupboard so he will not be laughed at.”

“But surely his work can’t be as bad as all that.”

“Worse, my dear Van Gogh, worse. You haven’t seen any of it? That explains your incredulity. He draws like a child of five. I give you my word, I think he has gone completely crazy.”

“Gauguin respects him.”

“It breaks my heart,” continued Zola, “to see Cezanne waste his life in this fantastic fashion. He should go back to Aix and take over his father’s position in the bank. He could make something of his life that way. As things are now . . . some day he will hang himself . . . just as I predicted in ‘L’Oeuvre.’ Have you read that book, Monsieur?”

“Not yet. I just finished ‘Germinal.’”

“So? And what do you think of it?”

“I think it is the finest thing since Balzac.”

“Yes, it is my masterpiece. It appeared en feuilleton in ‘Gil Bias’ last year. I got a good piece of money for that. And now the book has sold over sixty thousand copies. My income has never been as large as it is today. I’m going to add a new wing onto my house at Medan. The book has already caused four strikes and revolts in the mining regions of France. ‘Germinal’ will cause a gigantic revolution, and when it does, good-bye to capitalism! What sort of thing do you paint, Monsieur . . . What did Gauguin say your first name was?”

“Vincent. Vincent Van Gogh. Theo Van Gogh is my brother.”

Zola laid down the pencil with which he had been scribbling on the stone topped table, and stared at Vincent.

“That’s curious,” he said.

“What is?”

“Your name. I’ve heard it somewhere before.”

“Perhaps Theo mentioned it to you.”

“He did, but that wasn’t it. Wait a minute! It was . . . it was . . . ‘Germinal!’ Have you ever been in the coal mining regions?”

“Yes. I lived in the Belgian Borinage for two years.”

“The Borinage! Petit Wasmes! Marcasse!”

Zola’s large eyes almost popped out of his rotund, bearded face.

“So you’re the second coming of Christ!”

Vincent flushed. “What do you mean by that?”

“I spent five weeks in the Borinage, gathering material for ‘Germinal’. The gueules noires speak of a Christ-man who worked among them as an evangelist.”

“Lower your voice, I beg you!”

Zola folded his hands over his fat paunch and pushed it inward.

“Don’t be ashamed, Vincent,” he said. “What you tried to accomplish there was worth while. You simply chose the wrong medium. Religion will never get people anywhere. Only the base in spirit will accept misery in this world for the promise of bliss in the next.”

“I found that out too late.”

“You spent two years in the Borinage, Vincent. You gave away your food, your money, your clothes. You worked yourself to the point of death. And what did you get for it? Nothing. They called you a crazy man and expelled you from the Church. When you left, conditions were no better than when you came.”

“They were worse.”