“My God!” he cried. “Why should you do this to me? What have I done to you that you should want to destroy me? Is it honest to kill a man just because he differs from your opinions? Can’t you let me go my own way? I promise never to bother you again. My brother is the only soul I have left in the world. How can you take him from me?”
“It is for your own good, Vincent,” said Tersteeg, and went out.
Vincent grabbed up his money purse and ran all the way downtown to buy a plaster foot. Jet answered the doorbell at the Uileboomen. She was surprised to see him.
“Anton isn’t at home,” she said. “He’s frightfully angry at you. He said he doesn’t ever want to see you again. Oh, Vincent, I’m so unhappy that this has happened!”
Vincent put the plaster foot in her hand. “Please give this to Anton,” he said, “and tell him that I am deeply sorry.”
He turned away and was about to go down the steps when Jet put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.
“The Scheveningen canvas is finished. Would you care to see it?”
He stood in silence before Mauve’s painting, a large picture of a fishing smack being drawn up on the beach by horses. He knew that he was looking at a masterpiece. The horses were nags, poor, ill-treated old nags, black, white and brown; they were standing there, patient and submissive, willing, resigned and quiet. They still had to draw the heavy boat up the last bit of the way; the job was almost finished. They were panting, covered with sweat, but they did not complain. They had got over that long ago, years and years ago. They were resigned to live and work somewhat longer, but if tomorrow they had to go to the skinner, well, be it so, they were ready.
Vincent found a deep, practical philosophy in the picture. It said to him,
He walked away from the house, refreshed and ironically amused that the man who struck him the very worst of all blows should be the one to teach him how to bear it with resignation.
CHRISTINE’S OPERATION WAS successful, but it had to be paid for. Vincent sent off the twelve water-colours to his Uncle Cor and waited for the thirty francs payment. He waited many, many days; Uncle Cor sent the money at his leisure. Since the doctor at Leyden was the same one who was going to deliver Christine, they wished to keep in his good graces. Vincent sent off his last twenty francs many days before the first. The same old story began all over again. First coffee and black bread, then just black bread, then plain water, then fever, exhaustion, and delirium. Christine was eating at home, But there was nothing left over to bring to Vincent. When he reached the end of his rope, he crawled out of bed and floated somehow or other through a burning fog to Weissenbruch’s studio.
Weissenbruch had plenty of money but he believed in living austerely. His atelier was four flights up, with a huge skylight on the north. There was nothing in the workshop to distract the man; no books, no magazines, no sofa or comfortable chair, no sketches on the walls, no window to look out of, nothing but the bare implements of his trade. There was not even an extra stool for a guest to sit down; that kept people away.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he growled, without putting down his brush. He did not mind interrupting people in their own studios, but he was about as hospitable as a trapped lion when anyone bothered him.
Vincent explained what he had come for.
“Oh, no, my boy!” exclaimed Weissenbruch. “You’ve come to the wrong person, the very last man in the world. I wouldn’t lend you a ten centime piece.”
“Can’t you spare the money?”
“Certainly I can spare it! Do you think I’m a goddam amateur like you and can’t sell anything? I’ve got more money in the bank right now than I can spend in three lifetimes.”
“Then why won’t you lend me twenty-five francs? I’m desperate! I haven’t even a crumb of stale bread in the house.”
Weissenbruch rubbed his hands in glee. “Fine! Fine! That’s exactly what you need I That’s wonderful for you. You may be a painter yet.”
Vincent leaned against the bare wall; he did not have the strength to stand up without support. “What is there so wonderful about going hungry?”
“It’s the best thing in the world for you, Van Gogh. It will make you suffer.”
“Why are you so interested in seeing me suffer?”
Weissenbruch sat on the lone stool, crossed his legs, and pointed a red-tipped brush at Vincent’s jaw.
“Because it will make a real artist of you. The more you suffer, the more grateful you ought to be. That’s the stuff out of which first-rate painters are made. An empty stomach is better than a full one, Van Gogh, and a broken heart is better than happiness, never forget that!”
“That’s a lot of rot, Weissenbruch, and you know it.”
