“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.
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.
10
THE NEW STUDIO looked so real, with plain greyish-brown paper, scrubbed wooden floors, studies on the walls, an easel at each end, and a large, white deal working table. Christine’s mother put up white muslin curtains at the windows. Adjoining the studio was an alcove where Vincent kept all his drawing boards, portfolios and woodcuts; in a corner was a closet for his bottles, pots, and books. The living room had a table, a few kitchen chairs, an oil stove, and a large wicker chair for Christine near the window. Beside it he put a small iron crib with a green cover, and above it the etching by Rembrandt of the two women by the cradle, one of them reading from the Bible by the light of a candle.
He secured everything that was strictly necessary for the kitchen; when Christine came back she could prepare dinner in ten minutes. He bought an extra knife, fork, spoon, and plate against the day when Theo should come to visit them. Up in the attic he put a large bed for himself and his wife, and the old one with all the bedding in good order for Herman. He and Christine’s mother got straw, seaweed, bedticking, and filled the mattresses themselves in the attic.
When Christine left the hospital, the doctor who treated her, the nurse of the ward, and the head nurse all came to say good-bye. Vincent realized more fully than before that she was a person for whom serious people might have sympathy and affection. “She has never seen what is good,” he said to himself, “so how can she be good?”
Christine’s mother and her boy Herman were at the Schenkweg to greet her. It was a delightful homecoming, for Vincent had told her nothing about the new nest. She ran about touching things; the cradle, the easy chair, the flower pot he had placed on the sill outside her window. She was in high spirits.
“The professor was awfully funny,” she cried. “He said, ‘I say, are you fond of gin and bitters? And can you smoke cigars?’ ‘Yes,’ I answered him. ‘I only asked it,’ he said, ‘to tell you that you need not give it up. But you must not use vinegar, pepper, or mustard. And you should eat meat at least once a week.’”
Their bedroom looked a good deal like a hold of a ship, for it had been wainscotted. Vincent had to carry the iron cradle upstairs every night and down again to the living room in the morning. He had to do all the housework for which Christine was still too weak; making the beds, lighting the fire, lifting and carrying and cleaning. He felt as though he had been together with Christine and the children for a long time, and that he was in his element. Although she still suffered from the operation, there was a renewing and a reviving in her.
Vincent went back to work with a new peace in his heart. It was good to have a hearth of one’s own, to feel the bustle and organization of a family about one. Living with Christine gave him courage and energy to go on with his work. If only Theo did not desert him he was certain that he could develop into a good painter.
In the Borinage he had slaved for God; here he had a new and more tangible kind of God, a religion that could be expressed in one sentence: that the figure of a labourer, some furrows in a ploughed field, a bit of sand, sea and sky were serious subjects, so difficult, but at the same time so beautiful, that it was indeed worth while to devote his life to the task of expressing the poetry hidden in them.
One afternoon, coming home from the dunes, he met Tersteeg in front of the Schenkweg house.
“I am glad to see you, Vincent,” said Tersteeg. “I thought I would come and inquire how you are getting on.”
Vincent dreaded the storm that he knew would break once Tersteeg got upstairs. He stood chatting with him a few moments on the street in order to gather strength. Tersteeg was friendly and pleasant. Vincent shivered.