He lay awake at night worrying about it, wrote incessant letters to Theo begging for an explanation, and cast about desperately for some means of making his own livelihood. There were none.
14
WHEN HE WENT for Christine he found her in the company of her mother, brother, brother’s mistress, and a strange man. She was smoking a black cigar and drinking gin. She did not seem at all pleased at the thought of going back to the Schenkweg.
The nine days at her mother’s house had brought back the old habits, the destroying ways of life.
“I can smoke cigars if I want!” she cried. “You ain’t got no right to stop me if I get them myself. The doctor at the hospital said I could drink all the gin and bitters I wanted.”
“Yes, as medicine . . . to improve your appetite.”
She broke into a raucous laugh. “Medicine! What a———you are!” It was an expression she had not used since the very first days of their acquaintanceship.
Vincent was in a ragged state of sensitivity. He flew into uncontrollable rages. Christine followed his example. “You ain’t taking care of me no more!” she shouted. “You don’t even give me something to eat. Why don’t you make more money? What in hell kind of man are you, anyway?”
As the hard winter slipped into a grudging spring, Vincent’s condition went from bad to worse. His debts increased. Because he could not give his stomach the right food, it went back on him. He could not swallow a bite. The ills of his stomach went to his teeth. He lay awake at night with the pain. The ache from his teeth went to his right ear, and all day it twitched jumpily.
Christine’s mother began coming to the house, smoking and drinking with her daughter. She no longer thought Christine fortunate to be married. Once Vincent found her brother there, but he dodged out of the door as soon as Vincent entered.
“Why did he come here?” demanded Vincent. “What does he want of you?”
“They say you are going to throw me out.”
“You know I’ll never do that, Sien. Not as long as you want to stay.”
“Mother wants me to leave. She says it ain’t good for me to stay here without something to eat.”
“Where would you go?”
“Home, of course.”
“And take the children into that house?”
“It’s better than starving here. I can work and earn my own living.”
“What would you work at?”
“Well . . . something.”
“As a charwoman? At the tubs?”
“. . . I guess.”
He saw immediately that she was lying.
“So that’s what they’re trying to persuade you to do!”
“Well . . . it ain’t so bad . . . you make a living.”
“Listen, Sien, if you go back to that house you’re lost. You know your mother will send you on the streets again. Remember what the doctor at Leyden said. If you go back to that life, it will kill you!”
“It ain’t going to kill me. I feel all right now.”
“You feel well because you have been living carefully! But if you go back . . .!”
“Jesus Christ, who’s going back? Unless you send me.”
He sat on the arm of her wicker chair and put his hand on her shoulder. Her hair was uncombed. “Then believe me, Sien, I will never abandon you. As long as you are willing to share what I have, I will keep you with me. But you must stay away from your mother and brother. They’ll destroy you! Promise me, for your own sake, that you won’t see them any more.”
“I promise.”
Two days later, when he came back from sketching at the alms house, the studio was empty. There was no sign of supper. He found Christine at her mother’s, drinking.
“I told you I love my mother,” she protested when they got home. “I guess I can see her all I want. You don’t own me. I got a right to do as I please.”
She fell into all the familiar, slovenly habits of her former life. When Vincent tried to correct them and explain that she was estranging herself from him, she would answer, “Yes, I know it quite well, you don’t want me to stay with you.” He showed her how dirty the house was, and how neglected. She answered, “Well, I am lazy and good-for-nothing; I always was that way and it can’t be helped.” If he tried to show her to what ultimate end her slothfulness was taking her she would reply, “I’m nothing but an outcast, that’s true, and I’ll end up by throwing myself in the river!”
The mother came to the studio nearly every day now, and took from Vincent the companionship he had so valued in Christine. The house fell into chaos. Meals became fitful. Herman was allowed to go around ragged and dirty, and stay away from school. The less Christine did, the more she smoked and drank her gin. She would not tell Vincent where she got the money for these things.
Summer came. Vincent went out of doors to paint again. This meant new outlays for paints, brushes, canvas, frames, bigger easels. Theo reported improved condition on his “patient,” but serious problems in his relationship with her. What was he to do with the woman, now that she was better?
Vincent shut his eyes to everything in his personal life and continued to paint. He knew that his house was crashing about his ears, that he was being drawn into the abysmal sloth that had recaptured Christine. He tried to bury his despair in his work. Each morning when he set out on a new project, he hoped that this canvas would be so beautiful and perfect that it would sell immediately and establish him. Each night he returned home with the sad realization that he was still many years from the mastery he longed for.
His only relief was Antoon, the child. He was a miracle of vitality, and swallowed all kinds of eatables with much laughing and cooing. He often sat with Vincent in the studio, on the floor in a corner. He would crow at Vincent’s drawings and then sit quietly looking at the sketches on the walls. He was growing up to be a pretty and vivacious child. The less attention Christine paid to the baby, the more Vincent loved him. In Antoon he saw the real purpose and reward for his actions of last winter.
Weissenbruch looked in only once. Vincent showed him some of the sketches of the year before. He had become frightfully dissatisfied with them.
“Don’t feel that way,” said Weissenbruch. “After a good many years you will look back on these early pieces of work and realize that they were sincere and penetrating. Just plug on, my boy, and don’t let anything stop you.”
What finally did stop him was a smash in the face. During the spring he had taken a lamp to the crockery man to have it repaired. The merchant had insisted that Vincent take some new dishes with him.
“But I have no money to pay for them.”
“It doesn’t matter. There is no hurry. Take them and pay me when you get the money.”
Two months later he banged on the door of the studio. He was a burly chap with a neck as thick as his head.
“What do you mean by lying to me?” he demanded. “What do you take my goods for and not pay me when you got money all the time?”
“At the moment I am absolutely flat. I will pay you as soon as I receive money.”
“That’s a lie! You just gave money to my neighbour, the shoemaker.”
“I am at work,” said Vincent, “and I don’t care to be disturbed. I’ll pay you when I get the money. Please get out.”
“I’ll get out when you give me that money, and not before!”
Vincent indiscreetly pushed the man toward the door. “Get out of my house,” he commanded.
That was just what the tradesman was waiting for. As soon as he was touched, he smashed over his right fist into Vincent’s face and sent him crashing into the wall. He struck Vincent again, knocked him to the floor, and walked out without another word.