Lust for Life (29 page)

"Poverty destroys."

"Yes, it destroys the weak. But not the strong! If poverty can destroy you, then you're a weakling and ought to go down."

"And you wouldn't raise a finger to help me?"

"Not even if I thought you the greatest painter of all time. If hunger and pain can kill a man, then he's not worth saving. The only artists who belong on this earth are the men whom neither God nor the devil can kill until they've said everything they want to say."

"But I've gone hungry for years, Weissenbruch. I've gone without a roof over my head, walking in the rain and snow with hardly anything on, ill and feverish and abandoned. I have nothing more to learn from that sort of thing."

"You haven't scratched the surface of suffering yet. You're just a beginner. I tell you, pain is the only infinite thing in this world. Now run on home and pick up your pencil. The hungrier and more miserable you get, the better you will work."

"And the quicker I'll have my drawings rejected."

Weissenbruch laughed heartily. "Of course they'll be rejected! They ought to be. That's good for you, too. It will make you even more miserable. Then your next canvas will be better than the one before. If you starve and suffer and have your work abused and neglected for a sufficient number of years, you may eventually—notice I say you may, not you will—you may eventually turn out one painting that will be fit to hang alongside of Jan Steen or..."

"...or Weissenbruch!"

"Just so. Or Weissenbruch. If I gave you any money now I would be robbing you of your chances for immortality."

"To hell with immortality! I want to draw here and now. And I can't do that on an empty stomach."

"Nonsense, my boy. Everything of value that has been painted has been done on an empty stomach. When your intestines are full, you create at the wrong end."

"It doesn't seem to me that I've heard about you suffering so much."

"I have creative imagination. I can understand pain without going through it."

"You old fraud!"

"Not at all. If I had seen that my work was insipid, like De Bock's, I would have thrown my money away and lived like a tramp. It just so happens that I can create the perfect illusion of pain without a perfect memory of it. That's why I'm a great artist."

"That's why you're a great humbug. Come along, Weissenbruch, be a good fellow and lend me twenty-five francs."

"Not even twenty-five centimes! I tell you, I'm sincere. I think too highly of you to weaken your fabric by lending you money. You will do brilliant work some day, Vincent, providing you carve out your own destiny; the plaster foot in Mauve's dustbin convinced me of that. Now run along, and stop at the soup kitchen for a bowl of free broth."

Vincent stared at Weissenbruch for a moment, turned and opened the door.

"Wait a minute!"

"You don't mean to tell me you're going to be a coward and weaken?" asked Vincent harshly.

"Look here, Van Gogh, I'm no miser; I'm acting on principle. If I thought you were a fool, I'd give you twenty-five francs to get rid of you. But I respect you as a fellow craftsman. I'm going to give you something you couldn't buy for all the money in the world. And there's not another man in The Hague except Mauve, that I'd give it to. Come over here. Adjust that curtain on the skylight. That's better. Have a look at this study. Here's how I'm going to work out the design and apportion my material. For Christ's sake, how do you expect to see it if you stand in the light?"

An hour later Vincent left, exhilarated. He had learned more in that short time than he could have in a year at art school. He walked some distance before he remembered that he was hungry, feverish, and ill, and that he had not a centime in the world.

9

A few days later he encountered Mauve in the dunes. If he had any hopes of a reconciliation, he was disappointed.

"Cousin Mauve, I want to beg your pardon for what happened in your studio. It was stupid of me. Can't you see your way clear to forgive me? Won't you come and see my work some time and talk things over?"

Mauve refused point blank. "I will certainly not come to see you, that is all over."

"Have you lost faith in me so completely?"

"Yes. You have a vicious character."

"If you will tell me what I have done that is vicious, I will try to mend my ways."

"I am no longer interested in what you do."

"I have done nothing but eat and sleep and work as an artist. Is that vicious?"

"Do you call yourself an artist?"

"Yes."

"How absurd. You never sold a picture in your life."

"Is that what being an artist means—selling? I thought it meant one who was always seeking without absolutely finding. I thought it means the contrary from 'I know it, I have found it.' When I say I am an artist, I only mean 'I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.'"

"Nevertheless, you have a vicious character."

"You suspect me of something—it is in the air—you think I am keeping something back. 'Vincent is hiding something that cannot stand the light.' What is it, Mauve? Speak to me frankly."

Mauve went back to his easel and began applying paint. Vincent turned away and walked slowly over the sand.

He was right. There
was
something in the air. The Hague had learned about his relation to Christine. De Bock was the one to break the news. He blew in with a naughty smile on his bud-like mouth. Christine was posing, so he spoke in English.

"Well, well, Van Gogh," he said, throwing off his heavy black overcoat and lighting a long cigarette. "It's all over town that you've taken a mistress. I heard it from Weissenbruch, Mauve and Tersteeg. The Hague is up in arms about it."

"Oh," said Vincent, "so that's what it's all about."

"You should be more discreet, old fellow. Is she some model about town? I thought I knew all the available ones."

Vincent glanced over at Christine knitting by the fire. There was a homely sort of attractiveness about her as she sat there, sewing in her merino and apron, her eyes upon the little garment she was making. De Bock dropped his cigarette to the floor and jumped up.

"My God!" he exclaimed, "you don't mean to tell me
that's
your mistress?"

"I have no mistress, De Bock. But I presume that's the woman they're talking about."

De Bock wiped some imaginary perspiration from his forehead and looked Christine over carefully. "How the devil can you bring yourself to sleep with her?"

"Why do you ask that?"

"My dear old chap, she's a hag! The commonest sort of a hag! What can you be thinking about? No wonder Tersteeg was shocked. If you want a mistress, why don't you pick up one of the neat little models about town? There are plenty of them around."

"As I told you once before, De Bock, this woman is not my mistress."

"Then what...?"

"She's my wife!"

De Bock closed his tiny lips over his teeth with the gesture of a man tucking a buttonhole around a button.

"Your wife!"

"Yes. I intend to marry her."

"My God!"

De Bock threw one last look of horror and repulsion at Christine, and fled without even putting on his coat.

"What were you saying about me?" asked Christine. Vincent crossed and looked down at her for a moment. "I told De Bock that you are going to be my wife."

Christine was silent for a long time, her hands working busily. Her mouth hung slightly open and her tongue would dart quickly, like the tongue of a snake, to moisten the rapidly drying lips.

"You would really marry me, Vincent? Why?"

"If I don't marry you, it would have been kinder of me to let you alone. I want to go through the joys and sorrows of domestic life in order to paint it from my own experience. I was in love with a woman once, Christine. When I went to her house, they told me I disgusted her. My love was true and honest and strong, Christine, and when I came away I knew it had been killed. But after death there is a resurrection; you were that resurrection."

"But you can't marry me! What about the children? And your brother may stop sending the money."

"I respect a woman who is a mother, Christine. We'll keep the new baby and Herman here with us, the others can stay with your mother. As for Theo... yes... he may cut off my head. But when I write him the full truth I do not think he will abandon me."

He sat on the floor by her feet. She was looking so much better than when he had first met her. There was a little touch of happiness in her melancholy brown eyes. A new spirit of life had come to her whole personality. Posing had not been easy for her, but she had worked hard and patiently. When he first met her, she had been coarse and ill and miserable; now her whole manner was more quiet. She had found new health and life. As he sat there looking up into her crude, marked face into which a slight note of sweetness had come, he thought once again of the line from Michelet:
"Comment se fait-il qu'il y ait sur la terre une femme seule désespérée?"

"Sien, we'll skimp and be as saving as possible, won't we? I fear there will come a time when I shall be quite without means. I shall be able to help you until you go to Leyden, but when you come back I don't know how you will find me, with or without bread. What I have I will share with you and the child."

Christine slipped off the chair, onto the floor beside him, put her arms about his neck and laid her head on his shoulder.

"Just let me stay with you, Vincent. I don't ask for much. If there's nothing but bread and coffee, I don't complain. I love you, Vincent. You're the first man's ever been good to me. You don't got to marry me if you don't want. I'll pose and work hard and do whatever you tell me. Only let me stay with you! It's the first time I ever been happy, Vincent. I don't want things. I'll just share what you have and be happy." He could feel the swelling child against him, warm and living. He ran his fingertips gently over her homely face, kissing the scars one by one. He let her hair fall down her back, smoothing out the thin strands with tender strokes of his hand. She laid her flushed, happy cheek on his beard and rubbed softly against the grain.

"You do love me, Christine?"

"Yes, Vincent, I do."

"It's good to be loved. The world may call it wrong if it likes."

"To hell with the world," said Christine, simply.

"I will live as a labourer; that suits me. You and I understand each other and we do not need to mind what anybody says. We do not have to pretend to keep up a social standing. My own class cast me out long ago. I would rather have a crust of bread at my own hearth, however poor it may be, than live without marrying you."

They sat on the floor, warmed by the red glow of the stove, entwined in each other's arms. It was the postman who broke the spell. He handed Vincent a letter from Amsterdam. It read:

Vincent:

Have just heard of your disgraceful conduct. Kindly cancel my order for the six drawings. I will take no further interest in your work.

C. M. Van Gogh.

His whole fate now rested with Theo. Unless he could make Theo understand the full nature of his relationship with Christine, he too would be justified in cutting off the hundred francs a month. He could do without his master, Mauve; he could do without his dealer, Tersteeg; he could do without his family, friends, and
confrères
as long as he had his work and Christine. But he could not do without that hundred francs a month!

He wrote long, passionate letters to his brother, explaining everything, begging Theo to understand and not desert him. He lived from day to day with a dark fear of the worst. He did not dare to order more drawing material than he could pay for, or undertake any water-colours or push on.

Theo offered objections, many of them, but he did not condemn. He offered advice too, but not once did he infer that if his advice were not taken he would stop sending the money. And in the end, although he did not approve, he assured Vincent that his help would go on just as before.

It was now early May. The doctor at Leyden had told Christine she would be confined sometime in June. Vincent decided that it would be wiser if she did not move in with him until after the confinement, at which time he hoped to rent the vacant house next door on the Schenkweg. Christine spent most of her time at the studio, but her possessions still remained at her mother's. They were to be officially married after her recovery.

He went to Leyden for Christine's confinement. The child did not move from nine in the evening until half past one. It had to be taken with the forceps, but it was not injured at all. Christine suffered a great deal of pain, but she forgot it all when she saw Vincent.

"We will soon begin to draw again," she said.

Vincent stood looking down at her with tears in his eyes. It did not matter that the child belonged to another man. It was his wife and baby, and he was happy with a taut pain in his chest.

When he returned to the Schenkweg he found the landlord and owner of the lumber yard in front of the house.

"What about taking that other house, Mijnheer Van Gogh? It is only eight francs a week. I'll have it all painted and plastered for you. If you will pick out the kind of wallpaper you like, I will put it on for you."

"Not so fast," said Vincent. "I would like the new house for when my wife comes home, but I must write to my brother first."

"Well, I must put on some wallpaper, so pick the one you like best, and if you can't take the house, it won't matter."

Theo had been hearing about the house next door for several months. It was much larger, with a studio, living room, kitchen, alcove, and an attic bedroom. It was four francs a week more than the old place, but with Christine, Herman, and the baby all coming to the Schenkweg, they needed the new space. Theo replied that he had received another raise in salary and that Vincent could rely upon receiving a hundred and fifty francs a month for the present. Vincent rented the new house immediately. Christine was coming home in a week and he wanted her to find a warm nest upon her arrival. The owner lent him two men from the yard to carry his furniture next door to the new studio. Christine's mother came there to straighten things.