“Oh, Theo, all these bitter months I’ve been working toward something, trying to dig the real purpose and meaning out of my life, and I didn’t know it! But now that I do know, I’ll never be discouraged again. Theo, do you realize what it means? After all these wasted years I have found myself at LAST! I’m going to be an artist. Of course I’m going to be an artist. I’ve got to be. That’s why I failed at all my other jobs, because I wasn’t meant for them. But now I’ve got the one thing that can never fail. Oh, Theo, the prison is open at last, and you’re the one who unbarred the gates!”
“Nothing can ever estrange us! We’re together again, aren’t we, Vincent?”
“Yes, Theo, for life.”
“Now, just you rest and get well. In a few days, when you’re better, I’ll take you back to Holland, or Paris, or wherever you want to go.”
Vincent sprang out of bed with a leap that carried him halfway across the cabin.
“In a few days, hell!” he cried. “We’re going right now. There’s a train for Brussels at nine o’clock.”
He began pulling on his clothes with furious speed.
“But Vincent, you can’t travel tonight. You’re sick.”
“Sick! That’s ancient history. I never felt better in my life. Come on, Theo, boy, we’ve got about ten minutes to make that railway station. Throw those nice white sheets into your bag and let’s be on our way!”
THEO AND VINCENT spent a day together in Brussels, and then Theo returned to Paris. Spring was coming, the Brabantine countryside called, and home seemed like a magic haven. Vincent bought himself a workman’s suit of rough black velvet, of the material known as
Anna Cornelia disapproved of Vincent’s life because she felt it brought him more pain than happiness. Theodorus disapproved on objective grounds; if Vincent had been someone else’s son, he would have had nothing to do with him. He knew that God did not like Vincent’s evil way of living, but he had a suspicion that He would like even less the casting off of a son by his father.
Vincent noticed that his father’s hair had grown whiter and that the right lid drooped still lower over his eye. Age seemed to be shrinking his features; he grew no beard to make up for the loss, and the expression on his face had changed from “This is me,” to “Is this me?”
In his mother Vincent found greater strength and attractiveness than before. Age built her up rather than tore her down. The smile engraved in curved lines between her nostrils and chin forgave one’s errors before they were committed; the broadness and wideness and goodness of her face were an eternal “Yea” to the beauty of life.
For several days the family stuffed Vincent with revivifying food and affection, ignoring the fact that he had no fortune and no future. He walked on the heath among the cottages with the thatched roofs, watched the woodcutters who were busy on a piece of ground where a pine wood had been cut down, strolled leisurely on the road to Roozendaal, past the Protestant barn with the mill right opposite in the meadow and the elm trees in the churchyard. The Borinage receded, his health and strength came back with a rush, and within a short time he was eager to begin his work.
One rainy morning Anna Cornelia descended to the kitchen at an early hour to find the stove already glowing red, and Vincent sitting before it, his feet propped up on the grate, with a half finished copy after “Les Heures de la Journée” in his lap.
“Why son, good morning,” she exclaimed.
“Good morning, Mother.” He kissed her broad cheek fondly.
“What makes you get up so early, Vincent?”
“Well, Mother, I wanted to work.”
“Work?”
Anna Cornelia looked at the sketch in his lap, then at the glowing stove. “Oh, you mean get the fire started. But you mustn’t get up for that.”
“No, I mean my drawing.”
Once again Anna Cornelia glanced over her son’s shoulder at the copy. It looked to her like a child’s efforts to reproduce something from a magazine during a play hour.
“You are going to work at drawing things, Vincent?”
“Yes.”
He explained his decision and Theo’s efforts to help him. Contrary to his expectations, Anna Cornelia was pleased. She walked quickly into the living room and returned with a letter.
“Our cousin, Anton Mauve, is a painter,” she said, “and he makes a great deal of money. I had this letter from my sister only the other day—Mauve married her daughter Jet, you know—and she writes that Mijnheer Tersteeg at Goupils sells everything Anton does for five and six hundred guilders.”
“Yes, Mauve is becoming one of our important painters.”
“How long does it take to make one of those pictures, Vincent?”
“That depends, Mother. Some canvases take a few days, some a few years.”
“A few years! Oh, my!”
Anna Cornelia thought for a moment and then asked, “Can you draw people so that it looks like them?”
“Well, I don’t know. I have some sketches upstairs. I’ll show them to you.”
