“Wait until I put that steak on. I have the potatoes all peeled, ready to boil.” He attended to things at the stove and brought back a basin of warm water to the bedside. “Shall I use my razor, Vincent, or yours?”
“Can’t I eat the steak without getting shaved?”
“No, sir. Nor without getting your neck and ears washed, and your hair neatly combed. Here, tuck this towel under your chin.”
He gave Vincent a clean shave, washed him thoroughly, combed his hair, and put him into one of the new shirts he was carrying in his bag.
“There!” he exclaimed, backing away to survey the job he had done. “You look like a Van Gogh now.”
“Theo, quick! The steak’s burning!”
Theo set the table and put out the meal of boiled potatoes and butter, a thick, tender steak, and milk.
“My word, Theo, you don’t expect me to eat that whole steak?”
“I certainly do not. Half of it belongs to me. Well, let’s pitch in. All we would have to do would be to close our eyes, and we could imagine we were home at Etten.”
After dinner Theo loaded Vincent’s pipe with some tobacco from Paris. “Smoke up,” he said. “I oughtn’t to allow you to do this, but I guess real tobacco will do you more good than harm.”
Vincent smoked in contentment, occasionally rubbing the warm, slightly moist stem of his pipe against his smooth cheek. Theo looked over the bowl of his pipe, through the rough boards, and all the way back to his childhood in the Brabant. Vincent had always been the most important person in the world to him, far more important than either his mother or father. Vincent had made his childhood sweet and good. He had forgotten that the last year in Paris; he ought never to forget it again. Life without Vincent was somehow incomplete for him. He felt that he was a part of Vincent, and that Vincent was a part of him. Together they had always understood the world; alone it somehow baffled him. Together they had found the meaning and purpose of life, and valued it; alone he often wondered why he was working and being successful. He had to have Vincent to make his life full. And Vincent needed him, for he was really only a child. He had to be taken out of this hole, put on his feet again. He had to be made to realize that he had been wasting himself, and be jerked into some rejuvenating action.
“Vincent,” he said, “I’m going to give you a day or two to get your strength back, and then I’m taking you home to Etten.”
Vincent puffed in silence for many minutes. He knew that this whole affair had to be thrashed out, and that unfortunately they had no medium but words. Well, he would have to make Theo understand. After that, everything would come all right.
“Theo, what would be the good of my going home? Involuntarily I have become in the family a kind of impossible and suspect person, at least somebody whom they do not trust. That’s why I believe the most reasonable thing for me to do is to keep at a distance, so that I cease to exist for them.
“I am a man of passions, capable of doing foolish things. I speak and act too quickly when it would have been better to wait patiently. This being the case, must I consider myself a dangerous man, incapable of doing anything? I do not think so. But the question is to try to put these selfsame passions to a good use. For instance, I have an irresistible passion for pictures and books, and I want continually to instruct myself, just as I want to eat my bread. You certainly will understand that.”
“I do understand, Vincent. But looking at pictures and reading books at your age is only a diversion. They have nothing to do with the main business of life. It is almost five years now that you have been without employment, wandering here and there. And during that time you have been going down hill, deteriorating.”
Vincent poured some tobacco in his hand, rubbed it between his palms to make it moist, and stuffed it into his pipe. Then he forgot to light it.
“It is true,” he said, “that now and then I have earned my crust of bread, now and then a friend has given it to me in charity. It is true that I have lost the confidence of many, that my financial affairs are in a sad state, and that my future is only too sombre. But is that necessarily deterioration? I must continue, Theo, on the path I have taken. If I don’t study, if I don’t go on seeking any longer, then I am lost.”
“You’re evidently trying to tell me something, old boy, but I’m blessed if I can gather what it is.”
Vincent lit his pipe, sucking in the flame of the match. “I remember the time,” he said, “when we walked together near the old mill at Ryswyk; then we agreed in many things.”
“But, Vincent, you have changed so much.”
“That is not quite true. My life was less difficult then; but as to my way of looking at things and thinking, that has not changed at all.”
“For your sake I would like to believe that.”
