Vincent chose as his text, Psalms 119:19, “I am a stranger on the earth: hide not Thy commandments from me.” He spoke with simple fervour. His youth, his fire, his heavy-handed power, his massive head, and penetrating eyes all had a tremendous effect on the congregation.
Many of them came up to thank him for his message. He shook their hands and smiled at them in a misty daze. As soon as everyone had gone, he slipped out the back door of the church and took the road to London.
A storm came up. He had forgotten his hat and overcoat. The Thames was yellowish, especially near the shore. At the horizon there was a dash of light, and above it immense grey clouds from which the rain poured down in slanting streaks. He was drenched to the skin, but he tramped on at an exhilarated speed.
At last he was successful! He had found himself. He had a triumph to lay at Ursula’s feet, to share with her.
The rain pelted the dust on the little white path and swayed the hawthorn bushes. In the distance was a town that looked like a Durer engraving, a town with its turrets, mills, slate roofs and houses built in the Gothic style.
He battled his way into London, the water streaming down his face and sopping into his boots. It was late afternoon before he reached the Loyer house. A grey, murky dusk had fallen. From some distance he heard the sound of music, of violins, and wondered what was going on. Every room in the house had its lamp burning. A number of carriages stood out in the sheets of rain. Vincent saw people dancing in the parlour. An old cabby was sitting on his box under a huge umbrella, huddled away from the rain.
“What’s going on here?” he asked.
“Weddin’, I fancy.”
Vincent leaned against the carriage, rivulets from his red hair streaming down his face. After a time the front door opened. Ursula and a tall, slim man were framed in the doorway. The crowd from the parlour surged out on the porch, laughing, shouting, throwing rice.
Vincent slunk around to the dark side of the carriage. Ursula and her husband got in. The cabby flicked his whip over the horses. They started slowly. Vincent took a few steps forward and pressed his face against the streaming windows. Ursula was locked tight in the man’s arms, her mouth full on his. The carriage drew away.
Something thin snapped within Vincent, snapped neat and clean. The spell was broken. He had not known it could be so easy.
He trudged back to Isleworth in the slashing rain, collected his belongings, and left England for ever.
Book one
The Borinage
1
VICE-ADMIRAL JOHANNES VAN GOGH, highest ranking officer in the Dutch Navy, stood on the stoep of his roomy, rent-free residence at the rear of the Navy Yard. In honour of his nephew’s coming he had donned his dress uniform; a gold epaulet perched on each shoulder. Above the ponderous Van Gogh chin jutted a strong, straight-ridged nose that met the convex cliff of the forehead.
“I’m glad to have you here, Vincent,” he said. “The house is very quiet, now that my children have married out of it.”
They mounted a flight of broad, angular stairs and Uncle Jan threw open a door. Vincent entered the room and set down his bag. A large window overlooked the Yard. Uncle Jan sat on the edge of the bed and tried to look as informal as his gold braid would permit.
“I was pleased to hear that you had decided to study for the ministry,” he said. “One member of the Van Gogh family has always done God’s work.”
Vincent reached for his pipe and loaded the bowl carefully with tobacco; it was a gesture he often made when he needed an extra moment to think. “I wanted to be an evangelist, you know, and get right to work.”
“You wouldn’t want to be an evangelist, Vincent. They’re uneducated people, and Lord knows what sort of garbled theology they preach. No, my boy, the Van Gogh dominies have always been University graduates. But no doubt you would like to unpack now. Dinner is at eight.”
The broad back of the vice-admiral had no sooner gone out of the door than a gentle melancholy descended upon Vincent. He looked about him. The bed was wide and comfortable, the bureau spacious, the low, smooth study table inviting. But he felt ill at ease, as he did in the presence of strangers. He snatched up his cap and walked rapidly across the Dam. There he found a Jewish book-seller who offered beautiful prints in an open bin. After a good deal of searching, Vincent selected thirteen pieces, stuck them under his arm and walked home along the waterfront, breathing in the strong odour of tar.
As he was pinning up his prints lightly, so as not to injure the fabric of the walls, there was a knock on the door. The Reverend Stricker entered. Stricker was also Vincent’s uncle, but he was not a Van Gogh; his wife and Vincent’s mother were sisters. He was a well-known clergyman in Amsterdam and by general admission a clever one. His black suit was of good material, smartly cut.
When the greetings were over the dominie said, “I have secured Mendes da Costa, one of our finest scholars of the classical languages, to tutor you in Latin and Greek. His home is in the Jewish quarter; you are to go there Monday afternoon at three for your first lesson. But what I came for was to ask your company at tomorrow’s Sunday dinner. Your Aunt Wilhelmina and Cousin Kay are anxious to see you.”
“I would like that very much. At what time shall I come?”
“We dine at noon, after my late morning service.”
“Please present my compliments to your family,” said Vincent, as the Reverend Stricker picked up his black hat and folio.
“Until tomorrow,” said his uncle, and was gone.
2
THE KEIZERSGRACHT, ON which the Stricker family lived, was one of the most aristocratic streets in Amsterdam. It was the fourth horseshoe boulevard and canal which starts from the south side of the harbour, runs around the centrum and back to the harbour again on the north. It was clean and clear, far too important a canal to be covered with kroos, the mysterious green moss which for hundreds of years has laid a thick surface on the canals in the poorer districts.
The houses that line the street are pure Flemish; narrow, well built, tightly fitted together, a long line of prim Puritan soldiers standing at attention.
The following day, after listening to Uncle Stricker preach, Vincent set out for the dominie’s house. A bright sun had waved away the ash-grey clouds that float eternally across the Dutch skies, and for a few moments the air was luminous. Vincent was early. He walked at a meditative gait and watched the canal boats being pushed upstream against the current.
They were largely sand boats, oblong except for the tapering ends; a water-worn black in colour, with great hollow spaces in the centre for the cargo. Long clothes-lines extended from prow to stem, on which hung the family wash. The father of the family thrust his pole into the mud, propped it against his shoulder, and struggled down the catwalk at twisted, tortuous angles while the boat slipped out from under him. The wife, a heavy, buxom, red-faced woman, sat immutably at the stern and worked the clumsy wooden tiller. The children played with the dog, and every few minutes ran down into the cabin hole that was their home.
The Reverend Stricker’s home was of typical Flemish architecture; narrow, three-storied, with an oblong tower at the top containing the attic window, and decorated with flowing arabesques. A beam stuck out from the attic window with a long iron hook at the end of it.