Madame Mauve came home and insisted that Vincent remain for supper. He sat before the fireplace and chatted with the children after the pleasant meal, and thought of how fine it would be if he could only have a little home of his own, with a wife who loved him and believed in him, and children around to pronounce him Emperor and Lord by the simple title of father. Would that happy day never come for him?
It was not long before the two men were back in the studio again, pulling contentedly at their pipes. Vincent took out his copies. Mauve looked them over with the quick, discerning eye of the professional.
“They’re not badly done,” he said, “for exercises. But of what importance are they?”
“Importance? I don’t . . .”
“You’ve only been copying, Vincent, like a schoolboy. The real creating had already been done by other men.”
“I thought they might give me the feel of things.”
“Nonsense. If you want to create, go to life. Don’t imitate. Haven’t you any sketches of your own?”
Vincent thought of what Tersteeg had said about his original studies. He debated whether or not to show them to Mauve. He had come to The Hague to ask Mauve to be his teacher. And if all he could show was inferior work. . .
“Yes,” he replied, “I have been doing character studies right along.”
“Good!”
“I have some sketches of the Borain miners and the peasants in the Brabant. They’re not very well done, but . . .”
“Never mind all that,” said Mauve. “Let me see them. You ought to have caught some real spirit there.”
Vincent laid out his sketches to the accompaniment of a furious beating in his throat. Mauve sat down and ran his left hand along the great swash of hair, smoothing the grain of it on his head again and again. Soft chuckles escaped from behind his salt and pepper beard. Once he rammed his hand against the swash of hair, left it standing in a bush, and threw a quick look of disapproval at Vincent. A moment later he took the study of a labourer, rose and held it alongside of a rough draft figure on his new canvas.
“Now I see where I went wrong!” he exclaimed.
He picked up a drawing pencil, adjusted the light and made a few rapid strokes, his eyes on Vincent’s sketch all the time.
“That’s better,” he said stepping back. “Now the beggar looks as though he belongs on the land.”
He walked to Vincent’s side and put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder.
“It’s all right,” he said. “You’re on the road. Your sketches are clumsy, but they’re authentic. They have a certain vitality and rhythm I haven’t found very often. Throw away your copy books, Vincent; buy yourself a paint box. The sooner you begin working in colour, the better it will be for you. Your drawing is only half bad now, and you can keep improving it as you go along.”
Vincent thought the moment auspicious.
“I am going to move to The Hague, cousin Mauve,” he said, “and continue my work. Would you be kind enough to help me sometimes? I need help from a man like you. Just little things, such as you showed me about your studies this afternoon. Every young artist needs a master, Cousin Mauve, and I will be grateful if you will let me work under you.”
Mauve looked carefully at all the unfinished canvases in his studio. Whatever little time he took away from his work he liked to spend with the family. The warm aura of praise in which he had engulfed Vincent evaporated. In its place came withdrawal. Vincent, always highly sensitive to the changes in people’s attitude, felt it instantly.
“I’m a busy man, Vincent,” said Mauve, “and I have little opportunity to help others. An artist must be selfish; he must guard every second of his working time. I doubt if I could teach you much.”
“I don’t ask for a great deal,” said Vincent. “Just let me work with you here sometimes and watch you build up a canvas. Talk to me about your work as you did this afternoon, so I’ll see how a whole project is completed. And occasionally, when you are resting, you might look over my drawings and point out my mistakes. That’s all I ask.”
“You think you are asking only a little. But believe me, it is a serious matter, to take an apprentice.”
“I wouldn’t be a burden to you, I can promise that.”
Mauve considered for a long time. He had never wanted an apprentice; he disliked having people about when he worked. He did not often feel communicative about his own creations, and he had never received anything but abuse for the advice he offered beginners. Still, Vincent was his cousin, Uncle Vincent Van Gogh and Goupils bought his canvases, and there was something about the crude, intense passion of the boy—the same crude, intense passion he had felt in the drawings—that appealed to him.
“Very well, Vincent,” he said, “we’ll have a try at it.”
“Oh, Cousin Mauve!”
“I’m not promising anything, mind you. It may turn out very badly. But when you settle in The Hague, you come to the studio and we’ll see if we can help each other. I am going to Drenthe for the fall; suppose you come at the beginning of winter.”
