“You’ll give me my bed and board. Ain’t that enough? I’m glad enough to stay here where it’s warm and I don’t got to go to work and make myself sick.”
Vincent took her in his arms and smoothed back the thin, coarse hair from her forehead.
“Sien, sometimes you almost perform a miracle. You almost make me believe there is a God!”
ABOUT A WEEK later he went to call on Mauve. His cousin admitted him to the studio but threw a cloth over his Scheveningen canvas hastily before Vincent could see it.
“What is it you want?” he asked, as though he did not know.
“I’ve brought a few water-colours. I thought you might be able to spare a little time.”
Mauve was cleaning a bunch of brushes with nervous, preoccupied movements. He had not been into his bedroom for three days. The broken snatches of sleep he had managed on the studio couch had not refreshed him.
“I’m not always in a mood to show you things, Vincent. Sometimes I am too tired and then you must for goodness’ sake await a better moment.”
“I’m sorry, Cousin Mauve,” said Vincent, going to the door. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. Perhaps I may drop in tomorrow evening?”
Mauve had taken the cloth off his easel and did not even hear him.
When Vincent returned the following evening, he found Weissenbruch there. Mauve was verging on hysterical exhaustion. He seized upon Vincent’s entrance to amuse himself and his friend.
“Weissenbruch,” he cried, “this is how he looks.”
He went off into one of his clever impersonations, screwing up his face in rough lines and sticking his chin forward eagerly to look like Vincent. It was a good caricature. He walked over to Weissenbruch, peered up at him through half shut eyes and said, “This is the way he speaks.” He went off into a nervous sputtering of words in the rough voice that often came out of Vincent. Weissenbruch howled.
“Oh, perfect, perfect,” he cried. “This is how others see you, Van Gogh. Did you know you were such a beautiful animal? Mauve, stick your chin out that way again and scratch your beard. It’s really killing.”
Vincent was stunned. He shrank into a corner. A voice came out of him that he did not recognize as his own. “If you had spent rainy nights on the streets of London, or cold nights in the open of the Borinage, hungry, homeless, feverish, you would also have ugly lines in your face, and a husky voice!”
After a few moments, Weissenbruch left. As soon as he was gone from the room, Mauve stumbled to a chair. The reaction from his little debauch made him quite weak. Vincent stood perfectly still in the corner; at last Mauve noticed him.
“Oh, are you still here?” he said.
“Cousin Mauve,” said Vincent impetuously, screwing up his face in the manner that Mauve had just caricatured, “what has happened between us? Only tell me what I have done. Why do you treat me this way?”
Mauve got up wearily and pushed the swash of hair straight upward.
“I do not approve of you, Vincent. You ought to be earning your own living. And you ought not go about disgracing the Van Gogh name by begging money from everyone.”
Vincent thought a moment and then said, “Has Tersteeg been to see you?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t care to teach me any more?”
“No.”
“Very well, let us shake hands and not feel any bitterness or animosity toward each other. Nothing could ever alter my feeling of gratitude and obligation to you.”
Mauve did not answer for a long time. Then he said, “Do not take it to heart, Vincent. I am tired and ill. I will help you all I can. Have you some sketches with you?”
“Yes. But this is hardly the time . . .”
“Show them to me.”
He studied them with red eyes and remarked, “Your drawing is wrong. Dead wrong. I wonder that I never saw it before.”
“You once told me that when I drew, I was a painter.”
“I mistook crudity for strength. If you really want to learn, you will have to begin all over again at the beginning. There are some plaster casts over in the corner by the coal bin. You can work on them now if you like.”
Vincent walked to the corner in a daze. He sat down before a white plaster foot. For a long time he was unable to think or move. He drew some sketching paper from his pocket. He could not draw a single line. He turned about and looked at Mauve standing before his easel.
“How is it coming, Cousin Mauve?”
Mauve flung himself on the little divan, his bloodshot eyes closing instantly. “Tersteeg said today that it’s the best thing I’ve done.”
After a few moments, Vincent remarked aloud, “Then it was Tersteeg!”
Mauve was snoring lightly and did not hear him.
After a time the pain numbed a little. He began sketching the plaster foot. When his cousin awoke a few hours later, Vincent had seven complete drawings. Mauve jumped up like a cat, just as though he had never been asleep, and darted to Vincent’s side.
“Let me see,” he said. “Let me see.”
He looked at the seven sketches and kept repeating, “No! No! No!”
