“They wouldn’t have to know. Do it first and tell them afterwards.”
“I can’t go against them. They’re too many for me. I can’t fight them all.”
“Well, don’t bother fighting them. Just marry me and that will be the end of it.”
“It wouldn’t be the end. It would be the beginning. You don’t know my sisters.”
“Nor do I want to! But I’ll have another try at them tonight.”
He knew it was futile, the moment he entered the parlour. He had forgotten the chilling air of the place.
“We’ve heard all that before, Mijnheer Van Gogh,” said the sister, “and it neither convinces nor impresses us. We have made up our minds about this matter. We want to see Margot happy, but we don’t want her to throw her life away. We have decided that if at the end of two years you still want to marry, we will withdraw our objections.”
“Two years!” said Vincent.
“I won’t be here in two years,” said Margot quietly.
“Where will you be?”
“I’ll be dead. I’ll kill myself if you don’t let me marry him.”
During the flood of, “How dare you say such things!” and “You see the sort of influence he’s had on her!” Vincent escaped. There was nothing more he could do.
The years of maladjustment had told on Margot. She was not nervously strong, nor was her health of the best. Under the frontal attack of the five determined women, her spirits sank lower and lower with each passing day. A girl of twenty might have fought her way out unscathed, but Margot had had all the resistance and will beaten out of her. The wrinkles showed on her face, the old melancholy returned to her eyes, her skin went sallow and rough. The line on the right side of her mouth deepened.
The affection Vincent had felt for Margot evaporated with her beauty. He never really loved her or wanted to marry her; now he wanted to less than ever. He was ashamed of his callousness; that made him all the more ardent in his love making. He did not know whether she divined his true feelings.
“Do you love them more than you do me, Margot?” he asked one day when she managed to escape to his studio for a few minutes.
She shot him a look of surprise and reproach. “Oh, Vincent!”
“Then why are you willing to give me up?”
She cuddled into his arms like a tired child. Her voice was low and lost. “If I thought you loved me as I love you, I would go against the whole world. But it means so little to you . . . and so much to them . . .”
“Margot, you’re mistaken, I love you . . .”
She laid her finger gently on his lips. “No, dear, you would like to . . . but you don’t. You mustn’t feel badly about it. I want to be the one who loves the most.”
“Why don’t you break away from them and be your own master?”
“It’s easy for you to say that. You’re strong; you can fight anyone. But I’m forty . . . I was born in Neunen . . . I’ve never been farther away than Eindhoven. Don’t you see, dear, I’ve never broken with anyone or anything in my life.”
“Yes, I see.”
“If it was something you wanted, Vincent, I would fight for you with all my strength. But it’s only something I want. And after all, it comes so late. . . my life is gone now . . .”
Her voice sank to a whisper. He raised her chin with his first finger and held it with his thumb. There were unshed tears in her eyes.
“My dear girl,” he said. “My very dear Margot. We could live a whole life together. All you need to say is the word. Pack your clothes tonight while your family is asleep. You can hand them to me out the window. We’ll walk to Eindhoven and catch the early morning train to Paris.”
“It’s no use, dear. I’m part of them and they’re part of me. But in the end I’ll have my way.”
“Margot, I can’t bear to see you unhappy this way.”
She turned her face to him. The tears went away. She smiled. “No, Vincent, I’m happy. I got what I asked for. It’s been wonderful loving you.”
He kissed her, and on her lips he tasted the salt from the tears that had rolled down her cheek.
“It has stopped snowing,” she said a little later. “Are you going to sketch in the fields tomorrow?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Where will you be? I’ll come to you in the afternoon.”
He worked late the next day, a fur cap on his head and the linen blouse drawn tightly around his neck. The evening sky was of lilac with gold, over dark silhouettes of the cottages, between the masses of ruddy-coloured brushwood. Above, the spare black poplars rose; the foreground was of a faded and bleached green, varied by strips of black earth and pale dry reeds along the ditch edges.
Margot came walking rapidly across the field. She was wearing the same white dress in which he had first met her, with a scarf thrown over her shoulders. He noticed a faint touch of colour in her cheeks. She looked like the woman who had bloomed so beautifully under love only a few weeks back. She was carrying a small work-basket in her hands.
She flung her arms about his neck. He could feel her heart beating wildly against him. He tipped her head back and looked into the brownness of her eyes. The melancholy was gone.
“What is it?” he asked. “Has something happened?”
“No, no,” she cried, “it’s . . . it’s just that I’m happy . . . to be with you again . . .”
“But why have you come out in this light dress?”
She was silent for a moment and then said, “Vincent, no matter how far away you go, I want you always to remember one thing about me.”
“What, Margot?”
“That I loved you! Always remember that I loved you more than any other woman in your whole life.”
“Why are you trembling so?”
“It’s nothing. I was detained. That’s why I was late. Are you nearly finished?”
“In a few moments.”
“Then let me sit behind you while you work, just as I used to. You know, dear, I never wanted to be in your way, or hinder you. I only wanted you to let me love you.”
“Yes, Margot.” He could think of nothing else to say.
“Then go to work, my darling, and finish . . . so that we can go home together.” She shivered a little, drew the scarf about her, and said, “Before you begin, Vincent, kiss me just once more. The way you kissed me . . . that time . . . in your studio . . . when we were so happy in each other’s arms.”
He kissed her tenderly. She drew her dress about her and sat behind him. The sun disappeared and the short winter gloaming fell over the flat land. The quiet of the country evening engulfed them.
There was the clink of a bottle. Margot rose to her knees with a half stifled cry, then sank to the earth in a violent spasm. Vincent jumped up and flung himself before her. Her eyes were closed; across her face was spread a sardonic smile. She went through a series of quick convulsions; her body went rigid and arched backwards, with the arms flexed. Vincent bent over the bottle that was lying in the snow. A white, crystalline residue had been left just inside the mouth of the bottle. It was odourless.
He picked Margot up in his arms and ran madly across the fields. He was a kilometre away from Nuenen. He was afraid she would die before he could get her back to the village. It was just before the supper hour. People were sitting out in front of their doors. Vincent came in the far side of town and had to run through the full length of the village with Margot in his arms. He reached the Begeman house, kicked the door open with a smash of his boot, and laid Margot on the sofa in the parlour. The mother and sisters came running in.
“Margot took poison!” he cried. “I’ll get the doctor!”