For several weeks he did not even have the desire to go into the garden. He sat in the ward near the stove, reading the books that Theo sent from Paris. When one of his neighbours was taken with an attack, he did not look up or get out of his chair. Insanity had become sanity; the abnormal had become the normal. It was so long since he had lived with rational people that he no longer looked upon his fellow inmates as irrational.
“I’m sorry, Vincent,” said Doctor Peyron, “but I cannot give you permission to leave the grounds again. In the future you must stay within the walls.”
“You will permit me to work in my studio?”
“I advise you against it.”
“Would you prefer me to commit suicide, Doctor?”
“Very well, work in your studio. But only for a few hours a day.”
Even the sight of his easel and brushes could not destroy Vincent’s lethargy. He sat in the Monticelli armchair and stared through the iron bars at the barren cornfields.
A few days later he was summoned to Doctor Peyron’s office to sign for a registered letter. When he slit open the envelope, he found a cheque for four hundred francs made out in his name. It was the largest sum of money he had ever possessed at one time. He wondered what on earth Theo had sent it for.
My Dear Vincent:
At last! One of your canvases has been bought for four hundred francs! It was Red Vineyard, the one you painted at Arles last spring. It was bought by Anna Bock, sister of the Dutch painter.
Congratulations, old boy! Soon we’ll be selling you all over Europe! Use this money to come back to Paris, if Doctor Peyron agrees.
I have recently met a delightful man, Doctor Gachet, who has a home in Auvers-sur-Oise, just an hour from Paris. Every important painter since Daubigny has worked in his home. He claims he understands your case thoroughly, and that any time you want to come to Auvers, he will take care of you.
Vincent showed Doctor Peyron and his wife the letter. Peyron read it thoughtfully, then fingered the cheque. He contratulated Vincent on his good fortune. Vincent walked down the path, the soft stuff of his brain springing to firm life again with feverish activity. Half-way across the garden he saw that he had taken the cheque with him but left Theo’s letter in the Doctor’s office. He turned and walked back quickly.
He was about to knock on the door when he heard his name mentioned inside. He hesitated for a moment, irresolute.
“Then why do you suppose he did it?” demanded Madame Peyron.
“Perhaps he thought it would be good for his brother.”
“But if he can’t afford the money . . .?”
“I suppose he thought it was worth it, to bring Vincent back to normal.”
“Then you don’t think there’s any chance of it being the truth?”
“My dear Marie, how could there be? This woman is supposed to be the sister of an artist. How in the world could a person with any perception . . .?”
Vincent walked away.
At supper he received a wire from Theo.
NAMED THE BOY AFTER YOU. JOHANNA AND VINCENT FEELING FINE.
The sale of his picture and the marvellous news from Theo made Vincent a well man over night. In the morning he went early to his studio, cleaned his brushes, sorted the canvases and studies that were leaning against the wall.
“If Delacroix can discover painting when he no longer has teeth or breath I can discover it when I no longer have teeth or wits.”
He threw himself into his work with a dumb fury. He copied The Good Samaritan after Delacroix, The Sower and The Digger after Millet. He was determined to take his recent misfortune with a sort of northern phlegm. The life of art was shattering; he had known that when he began. Then why should he take to complaining at this late date?
Exactly two weeks to the day after receiving the four hundred franc cheque, he found in the mail a copy of the January issue of the Mercure de France. He noticed that Theo had checked an article on the title page called “Les Isolées.”
That which characterizes all the work of Vincent Van Gogh (he read) is the excess of force, and the violence in expression. In his categorical affirmative of the essential character of things, in his often rash simplification of form, in his insolent desire to look at the sun face to face, in the passion of his drawing and colour, their lies revealed a powerful one, a male, a darer who is sometimes brutal, sometimes ingenuously delicate.
Vincent Van Gogh is of the sublime line of Frans Hals. His realism goes beyond the truth of those great little burghers of Holland, so healthy in body, so well balanced in mind, who were his ancestors. What marks his canvases is his conscientious study of character, his continuous search for the quintessence of each object, his deep and almost childlike love of nature and truth.
This robust and true artist with an illumined soul, will he ever know the joys of being rehabilitated by the public? I do not think so. He is too simple, and at the same time too subtle, for our contemporary bourgeois spirit. He will never be altogether understood except by his brother artists.
Vincent did not show the article to Doctor Peyron.
All his strength and lust for life came back to him. He painted a picture of the ward in which he slept, painted the superintendent of the buildings, and then his wife, made more copies after Millet and Delacroix, filled his nights and days with tumultuous labour.
By going carefully over the history of his illness, he saw clearly that his seizures were cyclical in nature, coming every three months. Very well, if he knew when they were to come, he would be able to take care of himself. When his next attack was due, he would stop work, go to bed, and prepare himself for a brief indisposition. And after a few days he would be up again, just as though he had been suffering from nothing more than a slight cold.
The only thing that now disturbed him at the asylum was the intense religious nature of the place. It seemed to him that with the coming of the dark winter, the sisters had suffered a hysterical seizure. Sometimes, as he watched them mumble their prayers, kiss their crosses, finger their beads, walk with their eyes glued to their Bibles, tiptoe into the chapel for prayer and services five and six times a day, he had difficulty in determining who were the patients in this insane asylum, and who the attendants. Since his days in the Borinage he had had a horror of all religious exaggerations. At moments he found the sisters’ aberrations preying upon his mind. He drove himself more passionately into his work, trying to wipe the image of the black-hooded, black-caped creatures from his mind.
He gave himself forty-eight hours leeway before the end of the third month, going to bed in perfect health and spirits. He pulled the curtains of the bed about him so that the sisters, shaken by their ever rising religious exaltation, could not destroy his peace of mind.
The day arrived when his seizure was due. Vincent awaited it eagerly, almost with affection. The hours dragged by. Nothing happened. He was surprised, then disappointed. The second day passed. He still felt completely normal. When the third day drew to an end without mishap, he had to laugh at himself.
“I’ve been a fool. I’ve seen the last of those attacks, after all. Doctor Peyron was wrong. From now on I don’t have to be afraid. I’ve been wasting my time, lying in bed this way. Tomorrow morning I’m going to get up and work.”