“One great objection for me is that you started too late. If you had begun as a boy, you might have developed some quality in your work by now. But you are thirty, Vincent, and you ought to be successful. I was at your age. How can you ever hope to succeed if you have no talent? And worse yet, how can you justify yourself in taking charity from Theo?”
“Mauve once said to me, ‘Vincent, when you draw you are a painter.’”
“Mauve is your cousin; he was being kind to you. I am your friend, and believe me, my kindness is of the better sort. Give it up before you find that your whole life has slipped out from under you. Some day, when you have found your real work and are successful, you will come back to thank me.”
“Mijnheer Tersteeg, I have not had a centime in my pocket for a piece of bread in five days. But I would not ask you for money if it were only for myself. I have a model, a poor, sick woman. I have not been able to pay her the money I owe. She needs it. I beg you to lend me ten guilders until the money arrives from Theo. I will pay it back.”
Tersteeg rose and stared out the window at the swans in the pond, all that was left of the original court water works. He wondered why Vincent had come to The Hague to settle, when his uncles owned art shops in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, and Paris.
“You think it would be a favour if I lent you ten guilders,” he said without turning about, his hands clasped behind his Prince Albert coat. “But I’m not sure it wouldn’t be a greater favour to refuse you.”
Vincent knew how Sien had earned the money for those potatoes and string beans. He could not let her go on supporting him.
“Mijnheer Tersteeg, no doubt you are right. I am no artist and I have no ability. It would be very unwise for you to encourage me with money. I must begin earning my own living immediately and find my niche in life. But for the sake of our old friendship I ask you to lend me ten guilders.”
Tersteeg took a wallet from the inside of his Prince Albert, searched for a ten guilder note, and handed it to Vincent without a word.
“Thank you,” said Vincent. “You are very kind.”
As he walked home along the well kept streets with the neat little brick houses speaking to him eloquently of security, comfort, and peace, he murmured to himself, “One cannot always be friends; one must quarrel sometimes. But for six months I will not go to see Tersteeg again, or speak to him, or show him my work.”
He dropped in at De Bock’s to find out just what this salable thing was, this charm that De Bock had, but he had not. De Bock was sitting with his feet up on a chair, reading an English novel.
“Hello,” he said, “I’m in the doldrums. Can’t draw a line. Pull up a chair and amuse me. Is it too early in the morning for a cigar? Have you heard any good stories lately?”
“Let me see some of your canvases again, will you, De Bock? I want to find out why your work sells and mine doesn’t.”
“Talent, old fellow, talent,” said De Bock, getting up lazily. “It’s a gift. Either you have it or you haven’t. I couldn’t tell you what it is myself, and I paint the blasted things.”
He brought in half a dozen canvases still on their frames, and chatted lightly about them while Vincent sat there, poking holes through the thin paint and thin sentiment with burning eyes.
“Mine are better,” he said to himself. “Mine are truer, deeper. I say more with a carpenter’s pencil than he says with a whole paint box. What he expresses is obvious. When he gets all through he has said nothing. Why do they give him praise and money and refuse me the price of black bread and coffee?”
When he made his escape, Vincent murmured to himself, “There is a consumptive atmosphere in that house. There is something blasé and insincere about De Bock that oppresses me. Millet was right: ‘
“De Bock can keep his charm and his money. I’ll take my life of reality and hardship. That is not the road on which one perishes.”
He found Christine mopping the wooden floor of the studio with a wet rag. Her hair was tied up in a black kerchief and a faint dew of perspiration glistened in the pock holes of her face.
“Did you get the money?” she asked, looking up from the floor.
“Yes. Ten francs.”
“Ain’t it wonderful to have rich friends?”
“Yes. Here are the six francs I owe you.”
Sien got up and wiped her face on the black apron.
“You can’t give me nothing now,” she said. “Not till your brother sends that money. Four francs won’t help you much.”
“I can get along. Sien. You need this money.”
“So do you. Tell you what we’ll do. I’ll stay here till you get a letter from your brother. We’ll eat out of the ten francs like it belonged to both of us. I can make it last longer than you.”
“What about the posing? I won’t be able to pay you anything for that.”
