It was late afternoon before he found the Rue Laval. The dull ache within him had been numbed by sheer fatigue. He went directly to where his pictures and studies were tied in bundles. He spread them all out on the floor.
He gazed at his canvases. God! but they were dark and dreary. God! but they were heavy, lifeless, dead. He had been painting in a long past century, and he had not known it.
Theo came home in the gloaming and found Vincent sitting dully on the floor. He knelt beside his brother. The last vestiges of daylight were blotted out of the room. Theo was silent for some time.
“Vincent,” he said, “I know how you feel. Stunned. It’s tremendous, isn’t it? We’re throwing overboard nearly everything that painting has held sacred.”
Vincent’s small, hurt eyes caught Theo’s and held them.
“Theo, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t you bring me here sooner? You’ve let me waste six long years.”
“Waste them? Nonsense. You’ve worked out your craft for yourself. You paint like Vincent Van Gogh, and nobody else in the world. If you had come here before you crystallized your own particular expression, Paris would have moulded you to suit itself.”
“But what am I to do? Look at this junk!” He kicked his foot through a large, dark canvas. “It’s all dead, Theo. And worthless.”
“You ask me what you are to do? I’ll tell you. You are to learn about light and colour from the Impressionists. That much you must borrow from them. But nothing more. You must not imitate. You must not get swamped. Don’t let Paris submerge you.”
“But, Theo, I must learn everything all over. Everything I do is wrong.”
“Everything you do is right . . . except your light and colour. You were an Impressionist from the day you picked up a pencil in the Borinage. Look at your drawing! Look at your brushwork! No one ever painted like that before Manet. Look at your lines! You almost never make a definite statement. Look at your faces, your trees, your figures in the fields! They are your impressions. They are rough, imperfect, filtered through your own personality. That’s what it means, to be an Impressionist; not to paint like everyone else, not to be a slave to rules and regulations. You belong to your age, Vincent, and you’re an Impressionist whether you like it or not.”
“Oh, Theo, do I like it!”
“Your work is known in Paris among the young painters who count. Oh, I don’t mean those who sell, but those who are making the important experiments. They want to know you. You’ll learn some marvellous things from them.”
“They know my work? The young Impressionists know my work?”
Vincent got on his knees so that he could see Theo more clearly. Theo thought of the days in Zundert, when they used to play together on the floor of the nursery.
“Of course. What do you think I’ve been doing in Paris all these years? They think you have a penetrating eye and a draftsman’s fist. Now all you need to do is lighten your palette and learn how to paint living, luminous air. Vincent, isn’t it wonderful to be living in a time when such important things are happening?”
“Theo, you old devil, you grand old devil!”
“Come on, get off your knees. Make a light. Let’s get all dressed up and go out for dinner. I’ll take you to the Brasserie Universelle. They serve the most delicious Chateaubriand in Paris. I’m going to treat you to a real banquet. With a bottle of champagne, old boy, to celebrate the great day when Paris and Vincent Van Gogh were joined together!”
3
THE FOLLOWING MORNING Vincent took his drawing materials and went to Corman’s. The studio was a large room on the third floor, with a strong north light coming in from the street. There was a nude male model posed at one end, facing the door. About thirty chairs and easels were scattered about for the students. Vincent registered with Corman and was assigned an easel.
After he had been sketching about an hour, the door to the hall opened and a woman stepped in. There was a bandage wrapped around her head and she was holding one hand to her jaw. She took one horrified look at the naked model, exclaimed “Mon Dieu!” and ran.
Vincent turned to the man sitting beside him.
“What do you suppose was the matter with her?”
“Oh, that happens every day. She was looking for the dentist next door. The shock of seeing a naked man usually cures their toothache. If the dentist doesn’t move he’ll probably go bankrupt. You’re a newcomer, aren’t you?”
“Yes. This is only my third day in Paris.”
“What’s your name?”
“Van Gogh. What’s yours?”
“Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Are you any relation to Theo Van Gogh?”
“He’s my brother.”
“Then you must be Vincent! Well, I’m glad to know you. Your brother is the best art dealer in Paris. He’s the only one who will give the young men a chance. Not only that, he fights for us. If we are ever accepted by the Parisian public, it will be due to Theo Van Gogh. We all think he’s mighty fine.”
“So do I.”
Vincent looked closely at the man. Lautrec had a squashed down head; his features, the nose, lips, and chin, stuck far out from the flat head. He wore a full black beard, which grew outward from his chin instead of downward.
“What makes you come to a beastly place like Corman’s?” asked Lautrec.
“I must have some place to sketch. What about you?”
“Damned if I know. I lived in a brothel all last month up in Montmartre. Did portraits of the girls. That was real work. Sketching in a studio is child’s play.”
“I’d like to see your studies of those women.”
“Would you really?”
“Certainly. Why not?”
“Most people think I’m crazy because I paint dance hall girls and clowns and whores. But that’s where you find real character.”
“I know. I married one in The Hague.”
“Bien! This Van Gogh family is all right! Let me see the sketch you’ve done of the model, will you?”
“Take them all, I’ve done four.”
Lautrec looked at the sketches for some moments and then said, “You and I will get along together, my friend. We think alike. Has Corman seen these yet?”
“No.”
“When he does, you’ll be through here. That is, as far as his criticism is concerned. He said to me the other day, ‘Lautrec, you exaggerate, always you exaggerate. One line in each of your studies is caricature.”’
“And you replied, ‘That, my dear Corman, is character, not caricature.’”
A curious light came into Lautrec’s black, needle-point eyes. “Do you still want to see those portraits of my girls?”
“I certainly do.”
“Then come along. This place is a morgue, anyway.”
Lautrec had a thick, squat neck, and powerful shoulders and arms. When he rose to his feet, Vincent saw that his new friend was a cripple. Lautrec, on his feet, stood no higher than when he was seated. His thick torso came forward almost to the apex of a triangle at the waist, then fell in sharply to the tiny shrivelled legs.
They walked down the Boulevard Clichy, Lautrec leaning heavily on his stick. Every few moments he would stop to rest, pointing out some lovely line in the juxtaposition of two buildings. Just one block this side of the Moulin Rouge they turned up the hill toward the Butte Montmartre. Lautrec had to rest more frequently.
“You’re probably wondering what’s wrong with my legs, Van Gogh. Everyone does. Well, I’ll tell you.”