“Your uncles have enough money to clothe the whole population of Holland. Don’t they give you anything?”
“Why should they? They agree with you that artists should starve.”
“If they don’t believe in you they must be right. The Van Goghs are supposed to be able to smell a painter a hundred kilometres away. You’re probably rotten.”
“And you can go to hell!”
Vincent turned away angrily, but Weissenbruch caught him by the arm. He was smiling broadly.
“That’s the spirit!” he cried. “I just wanted to see how much abuse you would take. Keep your courage up, my boy. You’ve got the stuff.”
Mauve enjoyed doing imitations for his guests. He was the son of a clergyman, but there was room for only one religion in his life: painting. While Jet passed around tea and cookies and cheese balls, he preached the sermon about the fishing bark of Peter. Had Peter received or inherited that bark? Had he bought it on the instalment plan? Had he, oh horrible thought, stolen it? The painters filled the room with their smoke and laughter, gulping down cheese balls and cups of tea with amazing rapidity.
“Mauve has changed,” mused Vincent to himself.
He did not know that Mauve was undergoing the metamorphosis of the creative artist. He began a canvas lethargically, working almost without interest. Slowly his energy would pick up as ideas began to creep into his mind and become formulated. He would work a little longer, a little harder each day. As objects appeared clearly on the canvas, his demands upon himself became more exacting. His mind would flee from his family, from his friends and other interests. His appetite would desert him and he would lie awake nights thinking of things to be done. As his strength went down his excitement went up. Soon he would be living on nervous energy. His body would shrink on its ample frame and the sentimental eyes become lost in a hazy mist. The more he became fatigued, the more desperately he worked. The nervous passion which possessed him would rise higher and higher. In his mind he knew how long it would take him to finish; he set his will to last until that very day. He was like a man ridden by a thousand demons; he had years in which to complete the canvas, but something forced him to lacerate himself every hour of the twenty-four. In the end, he would be in such a towering passion and nervous excitement that a frightful scene ensued if anyone got in his way. He hurled himself at the canvas with every last ounce of his strength. No matter how long it took to finish, he always had will enough to the last drop of paint. Nothing could have killed him before he was completely through.
Once the canvas was delivered, he collapsed in a heap. He was weak, ill, delirious. It took Jet many days to nurse him back to health and sanity. His exhaustion was so complete that the very sight or smell of paint made him nauseated. Slowly, very slowly, his strength would return. In its wake would come his interest. He would begin to potter about the studio cleaning up things. He would walk in the fields, at first seeing nothing. In the end some scene would strike his eye. And so the cycle began all over again.
When Vincent had first come to The Hague, Mauve was just beginning the Scheveningen canvas. But now his pulse was rising day by day, and soon the mad, magnificent, most devastating of all deliriums would set in, that of artistic creation.
CHRISTINE KNOCKED AT Vincent’s door a few nights later. She was dressed in a black petticoat and dark blue camisole, with a black cap over her hair. She had been standing at the washtub all day. Her mouth usually hung a little open when she was extremely fatigued; the pock-marks seemed to be wider and deeper than he had remembered them.
“Hello, Vincent,” she said. “Thought I’d come see where you lived.”
“You’re the first woman to call on me, Christine. I bid you welcome. May I take your shawl?”
She sat down by the fire and warmed herself. After a moment she looked about the room.
“This ain’t bad,” she said. “ ’Cept that it’s empty.”
“I know. I haven’t any money for furniture.”
“Well, I guess it’s all you need.”
“I was just going to fix supper, Christine. Will you join me?”
“Why don’t you call me Sien? Everyone does.”
“All right, Sien.”
“What was you having for supper?”
“Potatoes and tea.”
“I made two francs today. I’ll go buy a little beef.”
“Here, I have money. My brother sent me some. How much do you want?”
“I guess fifty centimes is all we can eat.”
She returned in a few moments with a paper of meat. Vincent took it from her and attempted to prepare dinner.
“Here, you sit down. You don’t know nothing about cooking. I’m a woman.”
