But it was the colour of the countryside that made him run a hand over his bewildered eyes. The sky was so intensely blue, such a hard, relentless, profound blue that it was not blue at all; it was utterly colourless. The green of the fields that stretched below him was the essence of the colour green, gone mad. The burning lemon-yellow of the sun, the blood-red of the soil, the crying whiteness of the lone cloud over Montmajour, the ever reborn rose of the orchards . . . such colourings were incredible. How could he paint them? How could he ever make anyone believe that they existed, even if he could transfer them to his palette? Lemon, blue, green, red, rose; nature run rampant in five torturing shades of expression.
Vincent took the wagon road to the Place Lamartine, grabbed up his easel, paints, and canvas and struck out along the Rhône. Almond trees were beginning to flower everywhere. The glistening white glare of the sun on the water sent stabs of pain into his eyes. He had left his hat in the hotel. The sun burned through the red of his hair, sucked out all the cold of Paris, all the fatigue, discouragement, and satiety with which city life had glutted his soul.
A kilometre down the river he found a drawbridge with a little cart going over it, outlined against a blue sky. The river was as blue as a well, the banks orange, coloured with green grass. A group of washerwomen in smocks and many-coloured caps were pounding dirty clothes in the shade of a lone tree.
Vincent set up his easel, drew a long breath, and shut his eyes. No man could catch such colourings with his eyes open. There fell away from him Seurat’s talk about scientific pointillism, Gauguin’s harangues about primitive decorativeness, Cezanne’s appearances beneath solid surfaces, Lautrec’s lines of colour and lines of splenetic hatred.
There remained only Vincent.
He returned to his hotel about dinner time. He sat down at a little table in the bar and ordered an absinthe. He was too excited, too utterly replete to think of food. A man sitting at a nearby table observed the paint splashed all over Vincent’s hands, face, and clothing, and fell into conversation with him.
“I’m a Parisian journalist,” he said. “I’ve been down here for three months gathering material for a book on the Provençal language.”
“I just arrived from Paris this morning,” said Vincent.
“So I noticed. Intend to stay long?”
“Yes. I imagine so.”
“Well, take my advice and don’t. Aries is the most violently insane spot on the globe.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I don’t think it. I know it. I’ve been watching these people for three months, and I tell you, they’re all cracked. Just look at them. Watch their eyes. There’s not a normal, rational person in this whole Tarascon vicinity!”
“That’s a curious thing to say,” observed Vincent.
“Within a week you’ll be agreeing with me. The country around Aries is the most torn, desperately lashed section in Provence. You’ve been out in that sun. Can’t you imagine what it must do to these people who are subject to its blinding light day after day? I tell you, it burns the brains right out of their heads. And the mistral. You haven’t felt the mistral yet? Oh, dear, wait until you do. It whips this town into a frenzy two hundred days out of every year. If you try to walk the streets, it smashes you against the buildings. If you are out in the fields, it knocks you down and grinds you into the dirt. It twists your insides until you think you can’t bear it another minute. I’ve seen that infernal wind tear out windows, pull up trees, knock down fences, lash the men and animals in the fields until I thought they would surely fly in pieces. I’ve been here only three months, and I’m going a little
“Surely you must be exaggerating?” asked Vincent. “The Arlesians looked all right to me, what little I saw of them today.”
“What little you saw of them is right. Wait until you get to know them. Listen, do you know what my private opinion is?”
“No, what? Will you join me in an absinthe?”
“Thanks. In my private opinion, Aries is epileptic. It whips itself up to such an intense pitch of nervous excitement that you are positive it will burst into a violent fit and foam at the mouth.”
“And does it?”
“No. That’s the curious part. This country is forever reaching a climax, and never having one. I’ve been waiting for three months to see a revolution, or a volcano erupt from the Place de la Mairie. A dozen times I thought the inhabitants would all suddenly go mad and cut each other’s throats! But just when they get to a point where an explosion is imminent, the mistral dies down for a couple of days and the sun goes behind the clouds.”
“Well,” laughed Vincent, “if Aries never reached a climax, you can’t very well call it epileptic, now can you?”
“No,” replied the journalist, “but I can call it epileptoidal.”
“What the devil is that?”
