Vincent had no time even to think about his palette now. There were letters to be written, people to be interviewed, houses to be looked at, enthusiasm to be kindled in every new painter and amateur he met. He talked until he went hoarse. A feverish energy came into his eyes. He took his food fitfully, and almost never found a chance to sleep. He was forever going, going, going.
By the beginning of spring, the five thousand francs were collected. Theo was giving notice to Goupils on the first of the month. He had decided to take the shop on the Rue Tronchet. Vincent put down a small deposit on the house in St. Germain. The list of members with which the colony would be opened was drawn up by Theo, Vincent, Pére Tanguy, Gauguin and Lautrec. From the piles of canvases amassed at the apartment, Theo picked those he was going to show in his first exhibit. Rousseau and Anquetin had a bitter quarrel as to who was going to decorate the inside of the shop, and who the outside. Theo no longer minded being kept awake. He was now as enthusiastic as Vincent had been in the beginning. He worked feverishly to get everything organized so that the colony might open by summer. He debated endlessly with Vincent whether the second house should be located on the Atlantic or the Mediterranean.
One morning Vincent went to sleep about four o’clock, utterly exhausted. Theo did not awaken him. He slept until noon, and awoke refreshed. He wandered into his studio. The canvas on the easel was many weeks old. The paint on the palette was dry, cracked, and covered with dust. The tubes of pigment had been kicked into the corners. His brushes lay about, caked solid with old paint.
A voice within him asked, softly, “One moment, Vincent. Are you a painter? Or are you a communist organizer?”
He took the stacks of ill-assorted canvases into Theo’s room and piled them on the bed. In the studio he left only his own pictures. He stood them on the easel, one by one, gnawing his hangnails as he gazed at them.
Yes, he had made progress. Slowly, slowly, his colour had lightened, struggled toward a crystal luminosity. No longer were they imitative. No longer could the traces of his friends be detected on the canvas. He realized for the first time that he had been developing a very individual sort of technique. It was like nothing else he had ever seen. He did not even know how it had got there.
He had strained Impressionism through his own nature, and had been on the verge of achieving a very curious means of expression. Then, suddenly, he had stopped.
He put his more recent canvases on the easel. Once he nearly cried out. He had almost, almost caught something! His pictures were beginning to show a definite method, a new attack with the weapons he had forged through the winter.
His many weeks of rest had given him a clear perspective on his work. He saw that he was developing an Impressionist technique all his own.
He took a careful look at himself in the mirror. His beard needed trimming, his hair needed cutting, his shirt was soiled, and his trousers hung like a limp rag. He pressed his suit with a hot iron, put on one of Theo’s shirts, took a five franc note out of the treasury box, and went to the barber. When he was all cleaned up, he walked meditatively to Goupils on the Boulevard Montmartre.
“Theo,” he said, “can you come out with me for a short time?”
“What’s up?”
“Get your hat. Is there a café about where no one could possibly find us?”
Seated at the very rear of a café, in a secluded corner, Theo said, “You know, Vincent, this is the first time I’ve had a word alone with you for a month?”
“I know, Theo. I’m afraid I’ve been something of a fool.”
“How so?”
“Theo, tell me frankly, am I a painter? Or am I a communist organizer?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been so busy organizing this colony, I’ve had no time to paint. And once the house is started, I’ll never catch a moment.”
“I see.”
“Theo, I want to paint. I haven’t put in this seven years of labour just to be a house manager for other painters. I tell you, I’m hungry for my brushes, Theo, so hungry I could almost run away from Paris on the next train.”
“But, Vincent, now, after all we’ve . . .”
“I told you I’d been a fool. Theo, can you stand to hear a confession?”
“Yes?”
“I’m heartily sick of the sight of other painters. I’m tired of their talk, of their theories, of their interminable quarrels. Oh, you needn’t smile, I know I’ve done my share of the fighting. That’s just the point. What was it Mauve used to say? ‘A man can either paint, or talk about painting, but he can’t do both at the same time.’ Well, Theo, have you been supporting me for seven years just to hear me spout ideas?”
“You’ve done a lot of good work for the colony, Vincent.”
