Leaving Van Gogh

Nine





THE NEXT DAY BEGAN peacefully enough. My daughter was under the housekeeper’s eye: Madame Chevalier set Marguerite to the task of checking over all the fruit preserves and washing the empty jars, in preparation for the next batch. I proposed that Paul help me organize the studio; I had recently brought a substantial order of paints and supplies down from Paris, and the space is so small that everything must be carefully stowed, as on a boat. I thought if Paul’s enthusiasm for art persisted, we might need to store the paintings on the second floor to give us more space to work.

But Paul was surly that morning, careless and inattentive. He took little interest in my suggestions. He picked things up and put them down aimlessly, he tossed brushes into a drawer, all jumbled. I asked him to show me what he had done that week, and he told me he had destroyed all of his drawings.

“They were useless,” he said, looking out the window.

“Nothing is useless if you learn from it,” I told him. “Would you like to sketch in the garden after luncheon?”

“What use is sketching, anyway? Vincent never sketches.”

“Drawing is the foundation of painting,” I instructed. “If you do not draw …” I had to pause to consider my argument. Paul was right, in a way: Vincent rarely used drawing to prepare a canvas. “Drawing helps you understand what things really look like,” I said slowly, as I attempted to make my thoughts clear. “Vincent draws all the time, you’ve seen his notebook. There is a difference between the way we know things to be and the way they appear to the eye. And of course,” I added, on surer ground, “artists make sketches to plan canvases. You remember that Vincent did that for his portrait of Marguerite.”

“But usually he just heaps paint onto the canvas,” Paul countered. “And you think he is brilliant.”

I looked at Paul’s slightly rigid back. He had found something on the windowsill to occupy his hands, a leaf blown in from the garden perhaps. “Yes,” I said. “The way Vincent paints is unusual, but he is brilliant.” There was silence. I turned back to the box of paints I was transferring to drawers.

“Anyway I don’t want to draw today, Papa,” Paul said. “I’m going to fish.”

“Now?” I replied, surprised. It was a bright, hot morning, the kind of weather that drives fish deep into the cool, silty depths of the Oise.

Paul only shrugged and left the studio. My thoughts that morning were not pleasant. I had a heavy feeling, a sense of something ominous but unnamed. The house in Auvers had always been a refuge for me, but now it seemed full of worry.

We were very quiet at the luncheon table that day, each occupied by his or her own thoughts. I half-expected to hear the bell ring, and Vincent to appear with a blank canvas and his portable easel, but he did not come, which added to my unease. Even the dogs, whose behavior at mealtimes could be intrusive, had dispersed to shady corners. Only Nero barked from time to time, in a hoarse series of cries, then left off. Finally, as she got up to clear the salad plates, Marguerite broke the silence to say, “Paul, what is the matter with Nero?”

“Nothing,” Paul said, looking down at his plate. “He got wet down at the river, and I tied him up so he wouldn’t disturb us at the table.”

“Well, he must have dried off by now, it’s so hot,” said Madame Chevalier. “Why don’t you go untie him? The noise is unpleasant.”

“No, he got some slime on him,” Paul said. “He smells terrible. I was going to wash him after we finished.”

At that moment, though, the dog revealed him to be a liar. Nero had somehow slipped free from his tether and came galloping up to the table, barking with joy at every bound. We all turned to look at him and, as one, stood up, ready to escape. Nero was of an indeterminate breed, though I always thought Newfoundland predominated. He was large and black, shaggy and irrepressible. I found his boundless affection endearing, but the women complained about his size, his exuberance, and the impossibility of controlling him. Paul, who was fifteen the summer Nero joined us, worked hard to civilize him and was the only member of the family who could exert any influence on his behavior.

But Paul’s influence had evidently failed in the recent past, for Nero’s coat was matted with paint. It was mostly yellow, with areas of dark blue and green and flecks of white clumped in streaks and blobs on his side. There were smears on his muzzle, as if he had made an attempt to lick off the colors. The tip of his joyously wagging tail was frosted with orange. On top of it all, he was wet and smelled of turpentine.

In a flash I understood the reasons for both Vincent’s absence and Paul’s strange behavior that morning. I could imagine it now: Paul, importunate, tracking Vincent around Auvers. Vincent, unhappy at the interruption, the dog creating havoc. How could Paul have been so stupid?

Paul froze for a moment, but before Nero could reach us, he leapt from the table and planted himself a few feet away. “Sit!” he commanded. Nero obeyed, tail thumping the ground. “Stay,” Paul added. “Marguerite,” he said, using the same tone of command, “go get the rope, would you? It’s tied near Henriette.”

Marguerite, leaving a wide berth around the dog, trotted off toward the far end of the garden, where the goat’s bell clanked behind the trees. The rest of us stood still, unwilling to attract Nero’s attention and an affectionate, paint-streaked canine embrace. In a minute Marguerite returned, rope in hand. She flung it to Paul, who fashioned a kind of collar that he slipped over the dog’s head. The tail wagging instantly ceased, and Nero lowered his forequarters to the ground. Paul looked at him and sighed. He did not even glance toward me, but seemed quite frozen, as if braced for a flurry of blows or a tirade. His shame and fear cooled my anger.

“Paul and I will chance drinking our coffee out here,” I told Madame Chevalier. “If you and Marguerite wish to protect your dresses, you should stay indoors.”

“I should think so,” Madame Chevalier agreed, picking up the wine carafe and the water pitcher. “We’ll just be a moment, Doctor. Shall I get you an old blanket? Your smock?”

“Yes, what a good idea.” I turned to my daughter. “Marguerite, would you go up to the studio to see what you can find to protect Paul and me from Nero’s paint?”

When the women had gone inside, I asked, “Would I be correct in thinking that the two of you had an encounter with Monsieur van Gogh?”

Paul merely nodded, looking down at Nero. The dog gazed back at him.

“I hope all that paint came off a palette?”

Paul winced. “No. A finished canvas.”

“A finished painting!” I exclaimed, hands to my head in agitation. “This horrid creature destroyed a painting? I have a mind to drown him!” I shouted, glaring down at the dog.

“I should not have brought him,” Paul said in the dog’s defense. “How could he know? Monsieur van Gogh was shouting, and Nero tried to get away from him. It was awful! Nero knocked over the easel, and then I think he fell on the picture, and Monsieur van Gogh was terrifying, Papa, he was screaming and ranting …” He turned away from me and dashed his hand across his face, trying to hide his tears.

It is a terrible thing for a young man of seventeen to cry before his father. My outrage diminished. I bent down, quite awkwardly, and held out a hand to Nero’s bright-spotted head. He nuzzled me, and I took his soft ears into both hands, gently twisting them in the way he loved. He rolled onto his side, all worries forgotten.

“When did this happen?” I asked Paul, without looking up. There were bits of gravel stuck in the clots of paint on Nero’s fur.

“Yesterday, late in the afternoon.”

“Where has Nero been?”

“I closed him in a shed up on the plateau.” His voice was becoming steadier. “Nobody uses it. I took him some food and water. This morning I tried to get the paint off with turpentine and a rag. That was where I went. And it didn’t work, so I tried the river.”

“Oil paint is not water-soluble,” I commented, unthinking.

“No. And there was too much for the turpentine.”

Madame Chevalier appeared on the steps with the tray of coffee cups. Marguerite followed her, carrying an ancient blanket and my studio coat. “This will only cover you to your knees, Papa,” she said, “but I could not find anything else.”

“Thank you,” I said to both of them. “Marguerite, do you have a very large pair of scissors? Perhaps for cutting fabric?”

“I do,” said Madame Chevalier. “I’ll bring them.” She set down the tray. “You’ll pour?”

“I’ll pour,” I agreed, taking the blanket from Marguerite. “Paul, my boy, perhaps if you put this on like some kind of toga, you may yet salvage your trousers. We are going to give Nero a dramatic clipping.”

It took us most of the afternoon, and we did not entirely escape being smirched, but our appearances at the end were less alarming than Nero’s. He looked like a newly shorn military recruit. At first we just removed the fur that was matted with paint, but he was so piebald that we had to clip the rest of his coat simply to restore his natural symmetry. Paul seemed relieved when we finished our task.

“I am very sorry, Papa. I should have kept Nero under control.” It was a handsome apology.

“Yes,” I said mildly. “But it’s Monsieur van Gogh you need to speak to.”

“Must I?” he asked, stepping back in alarm. “He was so frightening!”

“Yes, you must,” I insisted, annoyed. “He has nothing to live for, Paul, except his painting. Do you understand that? Think of how he exists, how lonely he is, among strangers.”

“But he has us,” Paul protested. “He seems to like us; to like you, at least.”

“All the more reason why we should not destroy his work, don’t you think?”

“Yes, all right,” Paul conceded, scuffing the gravel with one foot.

I looked at the sorry pile of black hair at our feet. “We need to replace the paint that Nero wasted. That, at least, we can do. The finished canvas is beyond restitution. Why don’t you go get tubes of cobalt, malachite green, lead white, and yellow ocher. A large tube of the ocher, if we have one. Make them into a package. If you take them to the inn after dinner, he’ll be there.”

Paul looked at me with an appeal: “You wouldn’t come with me?”

I considered. Going with Paul could give the boy courage as well as provide me with an opportunity to check on Vincent. “Yes, I will,” I told him. He flushed, and tears again started in his eyes.

Paul was silent as we walked to the inn after dinner. We carried lanterns, though the last rays of the sun still diluted the dusk. Our steps were silent on the dusty road, and we heard only the sounds of a summer night: rustling and peeping in the trees, a far-off dog’s bark. The lights from Ravoux’s glowed at some distance, and the tables set out in front of the mairie were occupied with drinkers. We crossed in front of them, and I nodded to those I knew—the carpenter, the stationmaster, and the eldest son of the town’s biggest farmer. We turned down the alley beyond the inn, going directly to the back door, for Vincent would most likely be found in the shed where his paintings were stored. But he was neither there nor in the stuffy garret where he slept. Trying to quell my alarm, I turned to Paul. “I think you may know more of Vincent’s movements than I do,” I said. “Can you imagine where he might be?”

“We can try inside the café,” he said. “I can’t think what else to do.”

“He’s not drinking too much, is he?”

“Why do you think I would know these things, Papa?” Paul asked, annoyed.

I sighed and opened the back door to the café. “Never mind,” I told him.

Ravoux had had gas put in, so the room was bright with that pitiless, cold glow that I have never liked. I suppose it was more cheerful than the dim yellow halo from a solitary oil lamp—certainly the marble tabletops and the mirrors gleamed. But gaslight casts harsh shadows, and Vincent’s face, when he looked up at us, had the hollow-eyed look of a skull. He was sitting in front of a small glass of brandy and an empty coffee cup, elbows on the table, shoulders hunched. When he recognized us, he merely lifted one of his hands a few inches from the marble, to acknowledge our presence. “May we sit down?” I asked, and he nodded, gazing into his cup.

Paul set the brown-paper parcel of paint tubes on the table and pulled a chair from the next table to sit. I caught Ravoux’s eye and gestured to Vincent’s brandy. We would join him. Before the glasses arrived, Paul nudged the package toward Vincent with his fingertips. “I am very, very sorry about yesterday,” he said hurriedly. “I regret the loss of your painting. Here are some paints, to replace those that the dog …” He paused. “I know they are not the same as replacing a painting. I know that is a terrible loss.”

At this moment Ravoux brought our brandy and Paul gratefully seized his, burying as much of his face as he could in the small glass.

Vincent laid a hand on the paints and looked at me. “Thank you,” he addressed Paul. “Thank you.” He fell silent. A few moments passed, but he did not add anything. Paul looked at me, a question in his eyes. Vincent seemed to have withdrawn, retracted himself, as it were.

I tried to be bracing. “I hope you can re-create the painting. Make a second version, perhaps.”

He turned to me and nodded. “No doubt, Doctor,” he said. His voice was muffled. He took a breath as if to say something else, but nothing occurred to him.

“And you are feeling all right?” I asked, searching his face. “After yesterday? Any headache?”

“I’m tired,” he said to his hands, which were clasped around his glass. “It is such a long battle, Doctor, I wonder if it will ever be over.” He shook his head. “Yet I fight on. What else can I do?” He turned to me as if I might have an answer for him. Paul watched the exchange with his eyes as large as saucers.

“There is nothing else, I think, for any of us,” I said. “Can I give you something to help you sleep?”

“No, Doctor, I’ll sleep. And I’ll wake up tomorrow and go back out to the fields and put paint on canvas.” He looked at Paul. “I’m sorry if I frightened you yesterday. I don’t remember what I said, but I hope I wasn’t too … fierce.”

“Not at all. But I will always regret the painting,” Paul said, with dignity. He stood up. “Papa, shall I leave you two?”

I looked again at Vincent and saw only weariness. “No, I will come with you. We will leave Vincent and wish him a good night’s rest.” As I rose from the table, I touched Vincent’s shoulder. “Remember, I can help you. If anything disturbs you, I beg you will come to me,” I told him. He made as if to smile, but his eyes did not meet mine, and his smile was just a movement of the lips. He was very far away from us.

It was not until the second week in July that I went to visit Theo again. Vincent had not come to us the previous weekend, despite a friendly note I had left for him at the inn. I was sharply disappointed; I realized how much I had come to look forward to his company. I was also slightly alarmed, considering the mood in which I had left him. After Sunday luncheon, I sent Paul down to the inn to see if he could find out why Vincent had stayed away. Adeline Ravoux reported that he had taken the early train to Paris, so I comforted myself with the notion that he was with his brother. Yet he did not ring our bell on Monday, and Paul’s query resulted in the answer that he had returned from Paris and was out painting. This was worrisome. I was sure he was driving himself too hard. Exhaustion makes it more difficult for a man to withstand mental strain.

On Wednesday, as usual, I returned to my apartment in Paris. A message to Theo resulted in the suggestion that we meet at a café on the Boulevard Malesherbes. It was there that I found him on the Thursday morning, stirring sugar into his coffee.

“I am so sorry I have not been able to talk to you, Doctor,” he said, rising. “Will you have coffee?” He gestured to the waiter and sank back in his chair. He looked pale. I could not help checking his eyes to see if his pupils looked normal, but it was difficult to tell in the café’s bright light. “It has been a very busy time. I am taking Jo and the baby to Holland for a few weeks, you see, and there is so much to do before we depart.”

This was news. I was aware that Vincent hoped they would spend some of Theo’s precious vacation time in Auvers: he had spoken to me more than once of finding holiday lodgings for the whole family.

“Vincent seems to have had his heart set on your coming to Auvers,” I remarked.

Theo sighed and shrugged. He seemed resigned. “I know. He is terribly disappointed. But my mother is old, Doctor, and needs to see her grandson. Vincent so rarely understands why things cannot go as he wishes.”

“I think I know what you mean,” I agreed, picking up my coffee cup. “How did he seem to you on Sunday? He did not visit us last weekend.”

“Vincent’s visit on Sunday was a disaster,” he said. “I cannot tell you how I regret it. We all got excited, worried, things were said …” He looked me in the eye. “If you had not come to me, I would have asked to see you.” Here he paused, as if unable to go on.

“Was Vincent angry? I have seen a taste of his rage, and it was terribly alarming.”

“We were all angry. It was a long day; the baby has been ill, and I have been driven to distraction by those gentlemen at the gallery who do not seem to understand that a man has a right to a respectable salary. I have been considering going out on my own as a dealer. Vincent urges this, though of course he has no comprehension of the risks. Jo is more cautious. She favors economy, on all our parts. She pointed out, quite forcefully, that Vincent’s work does not bring us income, and that his paintings take up a great deal of space. To be honest, I had never seen Jo like that, either.”

“They say that women can be fierce as tigers when their children are threatened,” I suggested.

“She was fierce indeed. She said that if she could economize and reduce our expenses by one hundred francs a month, Vincent should be able to live on fifty francs less. She thinks that I should stop buying him paint and canvases until he sells something.”

I could think of no reply. I was astounded that the apparently mild-mannered Jo could have struck out at Vincent in this way.

“Of course he ran down the stairs shouting, and then Jo and I had words. We have settled things between us, fortunately, and Jo wrote to Vincent. You say you have not seen him?”

“No, but he was back at Ravoux’s by Monday, I know.” I glanced out the window at the boulevard. A rain shower had just begun, accompanied by a gust of wind that riffled the awning of the café. “I came to you, monsieur, because I have been worried about Vincent myself.” I told him about the episode with the unframed Guillaumin, and Paul’s unfortunate encounter. It was evidently difficult for Theo to hear this. He fidgeted with his empty cup until the waiter arrived, inquiring, but shook his head when offered another cup. His eyes ranged over the café’s interior, more crowded now that the customers seated outdoors had been forced inside by the rain. I saw him nod to a gentleman seated a table away, and his restlessness increased.

When I finished speaking, he turned back to me. “Doctor, would you mind coming for a walk with me? I would like to tell you more, but …” His eyes slid toward his acquaintance.

I glanced outside. The shower had ceased for the moment, leaving the sidewalk glazed with damp, but the clouds hung heavy and low. More rain was imminent. “Of course,” I answered, wishing I had brought an umbrella.

He put down a few coins and stood, leaning on the table. I wondered if he was even aware of his own weakness. Sometimes the symptoms of syphilis arrive so gradually that the diagnosis takes the patient by surprise. And sometimes patients willfully ignore them. Our powers of self-deception are remarkable.

Once on the pavement, Theo seemed unsure where to go, looking around as if the neighborhood were strange to him. “Never mind, let us go this way,” he said, linking his arm in mine. This was unusual: I had noticed that neither of the Van Gogh brothers seemed given to physical gestures of friendship. While exquisitely courteous, Theo did not even appear particularly demonstrative with his wife. I thought this hand on my elbow was a confession of sorts. He must feel utterly overwhelmed. It was actually quite pleasant, walking along linked to another human. I was reminded that my wife, Blanche, and I used to stroll this way, footsteps in unison, my hip against her skirts, along the Parisian streets.

Theo and I turned away from the bustle of the boulevard, down a street lined with apartment buildings. Ahead, an unusual structure loomed, surrounded by gravel paths and a few trees.

“I have often seen that building without knowing what it was,” I said.

“The Chapelle Expiatoire,” Theo answered. “This is the site where Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette were buried. The chapel was built by Louis the Eighteenth. The park is very quiet, we can stroll there.” I could not see how the row of low arches leading to a domed building could possibly be a chapel, but I followed. There were iron chairs scattered beneath the dripping trees, but the brief rain had driven away any occupants. We set out on the path, our feet crunching on the gravel. The shower had brought a whiff of freshness to the spindly lindens. It was a strikingly quiet square. As we walked, I studied the white marble walls of the chapel, severe blocks sparsely ornamented by carved laurel wreaths and winged hourglasses. It occurred to me that the arcades along the sides might shelter tombs, and I marveled at this manifestation of death mere steps away from Parisian temples of commerce like the Galeries Lafayette.

“Monsieur van Gogh,” I began, “would you tell me more about Vincent’s illness? His recent behavior has prompted some questions. There was an episode last week when he behaved very strangely. He shouted at me over a trifle, and then seemed to regain control of himself.”

“Yes, his temper can be very alarming,” Theo agreed. “He becomes enraged. But then it passes off, and he often seems despondent afterward.”

“That is just what I observed. It is this despondency that concerns me.”

“Yes, of course,” he answered, but then fell silent. He speared the damp ground with his umbrella at every stride.

“I am alarmed by the force of his despair,” I went on, looking at the row of tombs to my right. “Has he ever spoken of suicide?”

“Yes,” Theo’s voice came quietly. “Not in personal terms, you understand. He has not knowingly attempted to do away with himself. But he has spoken of it, written of it. He said after one attack that he felt like a man who’d tried to drown himself and found the water too cold.”

That startled me. “When you say ‘one attack,’ do you mean there were episodes besides the one when he cut his ear?”

“I think so, yes,” Theo answered. “It was difficult to get information, you know. There were certainly spells of very irrational behavior while he was at the asylum, I did hear about that.”

I could feel myself frowning. Surely I should have been told about this. “And did Vincent try to harm himself during any of these spells?”

The umbrella suddenly swung in front of us like a pendulum, left to right, nearly rapping my shin. “Apparently so. Signac—you know Paul Signac? The painter?” I nodded, for I knew his work. “Signac saw Vincent at Arles, a year and a half ago. That was after the episode with the ear, and Vincent was still in the hospital in Arles.” He looked at me to be sure I remembered, and I nodded again. One would hardly forget the episode with the ear. “Signac was with Vincent when an attack came on. They had gotten permission to go back to the house so Vincent could retrieve some books. While they were there, he tried to drink turpentine, and Signac had to wrestle the bottle away from him.”

“Had to wrestle …,” I repeated. “So this was an attack of some violence?”

Theo’s eyes sidled toward mine, and I could feel his hand tense on my arm. “Yes, Doctor. According to Signac, Vincent was raving and throwing himself around wildly, breaking things … The gendarmes had to come in and restrain him, and take him back to the hospital.”

So my idea that Vincent might be epileptic was not far-fetched. In fact, it seemed more likely with every word Theo spoke. I hardly knew what to think, or what to ask next. “Did you ever see behavior like that?”

“When I arrived in Arles, after the ear episode, he was tied to his bed. He didn’t recognize me but kept thrashing around and shouting, things I couldn’t understand. I only caught a few words here and there: Gauguin’s name, Jesus.”

“And is that all?”

There was a pause. “No. At the asylum, he once tried to drink lamp oil. And ate paint. Dr. Peyron, the doctor at St.-Rémy, mentioned these attempts in his letters. He also mentioned it when Vincent stopped talking of suicide. As if that were cause for hope.” I had not heard this note of bitterness before in Theo’s conversation, but it did seem justified.

The path turned a corner, wrapping now around what must be the chapel proper, a diminutive pedimented temple set upon a high terrace. There were still no visible allusions to the Christian faith or to the family that had once sat on France’s throne, just the expanse of smooth white marble. The effect was cold and dismal. “And Dr. Peyron, did he share his diagnosis with you?”

“Yes,” Theo answered. “He thought Vincent’s attacks were caused by epilepsy. So did Dr. Rey, the young doctor who cared for him at Arles. Rey was not fully qualified, of course. What do you think, Doctor?”

I paused. This was such important information Theo had just given me—information I should have had earlier. My mind was whirling as I tried to assimilate it. I had spent the week evaluating tentative diagnoses and combinations of diagnoses. I had looked through old notebooks, searching out symptoms that matched Vincent’s behavior. Mania would explain his furious energy, yet my last encounter with him, as he sat at Ravoux’s over an empty coffee cup, seemed to suggest melancholy. And now there were these attacks, whether or not they were epileptic, to take into account.

In a way, the puzzle was exciting. What doctor would not be intrigued by such a patient? Could it be that Vincent’s illness was a new one? Perhaps the highly strained nervous system of the artist could not tolerate the speed and stimulation of the current age. Possibly his “spells” were a kind of accumulated nerve strain, released in a form of convulsion. This might be the new melancholy of the coming twentieth century. Gachet’s syndrome, they would name it …

I recalled myself to the present. “I had better describe more fully what happened in Auvers last week.” I recounted Vincent’s alarming behavior with me and with Paul. “So I must tell you that I am concerned about these attacks. Has he ever tried to harm anyone besides himself?”

Theo studied the point of the umbrella, and dug it so deep into the gravel that he reached the damp black dirt beneath it. Finally he sighed and spoke. “Yes. From what I understand. Vincent was out painting one day—they used to let him leave the asylum with an orderly—and he attacked the man. He didn’t hurt him, and there were no hard feelings afterward. The fellow readily forgave Vincent. Dr. Peyron said they were all quite fond of him there.”

“Your brother … your brother attacked someone physically?” I repeated. “While he was having one of these spells? Monsieur van Gogh, you did not tell me this! That he has turned against people and injured them?”

“The orderly wasn’t injured,” Theo began to protest.

“And how often does he have these violent spells, or episodes, or whatever you want to call them? Do they follow a pattern?”

“They seem to arrive every few months. I don’t know what brings them on. He had his last attack in April.”

It was now early July. “Is Vincent aware of this periodic quality?”

“Yes,” Theo answered. He drew a breath and went on. “He wanted to come north and be settled shortly after the last episode, so that he did not fall ill on the voyage.”

It took me a moment to grasp the significance of this statement. Our feet struck the gravel in unison, once, twice, three times. I found myself listening to their steady pace rather than focusing on what Theo had just told me. We sounded as if we were old friends, pacing along as one. But it was Theo and Vincent who were in unison. Vincent wanted to leave the asylum and be settled before he had another attack, and Theo made this possible. The perfect brother, smoothing the way for his ailing sibling.

“Do I understand you?” I asked, stopping abruptly. Theo, surprised, stumbled a little bit and I confess I was not sorry. “Is it correct that, when you approached me, you thought that Vincent was likely to have another attack? And you did not warn me?”

That fair skin flushed. “Yes, Doctor. I must apologize. I should perhaps have—”

I could not let him finish. The words were out of my mouth in a burst: “You most certainly should have warned me!” I shook his arm free and flung away from him, perhaps to allow space for my anger to blossom between us. “Leaving aside my safety, and the safety of my family, how could you expect me to treat your brother without telling me everything about him?” I felt myself standing taller, looming over Theo. “I cannot be expected to work miracles in the dark, you know! How could I help him without knowing this? And to think—I allowed him to paint Marguerite! Monsieur van Gogh, I am astonished! What if he had had a ‘spell’ in my daughter’s presence? You have been reckless with our safety!”

Theo stood looking at me, hands folded on his umbrella handle. He had no answer. I walked away two steps, then turned on my heel, pivoting on the gravel and coming back to stand facing him. “He is practically living with my family!” I reached forward with my foot and kicked the umbrella aside, watching with satisfaction as Theo staggered, then recovered.

“What did you think you were doing? Finding him a nursemaid? Your brother is profoundly ill. He has attempted to kill himself. He has threatened my son. The last time I saw him, he was deeply despondent. For the final time: I cannot do anything for him if I do not have all of the details!”

I stalked away from him, to where the path turned. I rounded the corner, out of Theo’s sight, and halted, breathing hard. Ahead of me, an elderly man tottered on the arm of a much younger man, while a well-dressed lady spoke in his ear. They were too near me to ignore. I nodded to the group and turned around, just another old gentleman walking in a damp Paris park. Seething with rage. I drew a deep breath, trying to settle my spirits.

Theo was standing exactly where I had left him, looking forlorn. I did not hurry as I returned to him.

“Do you think we are safe around him? What will happen if the attack—which you apparently anticipate—occurs?”

“But he is better with you, Doctor,” Theo said, astonished. “Why are you so angry?”

“Because you did not tell me everything! Your mad brother is due to have another violent fit any moment. Did you not think it was necessary to warn me of this?”

“I did not dream that I needed to, Doctor,” he explained. “Vincent seemed so happy, so productive, and I thought—I suppose he thought so as well—that the attacks came because he was in the asylum. Everything seemed to be going so well. You have no call to be so fierce,” he added, with a kind of dignified reproof. “You were confident that he would continue to improve. We thought the worst was over. Surely you can see that.”

It is a deeply human impulse, the urge to hope. I had known it myself again and again, especially during poor Blanche’s illness. After a day without fever or an unbroken night’s sleep, I could not help believing she would get well. Of course Theo had felt the same way about Vincent. Theo must comprehend the gravity of the situation, however. “I understand,” I told him stiffly. “I apologize. Yet you should have told me about the rhythm of the attacks.”

Now it was his turn to sigh. “Yes, Doctor, I should have. But you see, I was so afraid that you would not be willing to take him on. If I had said to you, here is my brother, he is subject to attacks when he is violent and tries to harm himself, we hope he will be steadier away from the asylum, but we cannot be certain, will you take care of him—” He looked at me. “You see my point.”

“I do,” I said. “Nevertheless, you have seen your brother in the throes of a spell. You have described to me how he was raving, and restrained. Yet you sent him to me as if he were a mild little lamb! I must tell you, Monsieur van Gogh, that I wonder if your brother does not still belong in an asylum.”

A raindrop hit my cheek, and another one my hand. Theo looked to the sky and held out his palm in the gesture that said, “Is it raining?” He put up his umbrella.

“Let us hope the trees will shelter us,” he said. “Or perhaps we can take cover in the chapel, grim though it is.”

We hastened to the shelter of a pair of plane trees and stood side by side, watching the raindrops. My last words echoed in my mind. It was impossible that Theo should not still be hearing them: “in an asylum … in an asylum …” It was not a heavy rain, rather a spattering that blew across the park in front of us. Even the gravel around us stayed pale as the tiny pebbles beyond the trees’ shelter darkened slightly. We were very close together, shoulders touching beneath the double canopy of the leaves and the black silk dome of Theo’s umbrella. We did not look at each other but gazed outward at the rain while the drops tapped fitfully above our heads.

“I can understand why you would have kept some of this information from me,” I said into our silence. “But you may have made a grave mistake. You hope your brother is better, and so do I, but I must review the options for treatment. The situation is much more complicated than I understood.” I fell silent for a moment, wondering if there were a way to administer water therapy to Vincent without the vast tubs and hoses of a madhouse. I had seen cold baths calm patients in the asylums, but I had not tried to use them since.

“I have great respect for your brother, Monsieur van Gogh,” I resumed. “I admire him, of course: I do believe he is a genius. But I also honor his courage and his modesty and his devotion to his art, and his love of mankind. He wants so keenly to be useful, and he hopes so little for himself.”

“Yes,” Theo said. I felt him take a deep breath. “You have understood him.”

“I understand the lucid man,” I told him. “I do not understand …”

“The madman?” Theo proposed in a very low voice. “When he is making sense, Doctor, no one is more convincing. Yet there are other times when, although he seems to be clear-minded, his ideas are utterly impractical. To give an example, after the first attack in Arles, he insisted he should join the Foreign Legion.”

I could not suppress an undignified snort of amusement. Theo smiled wryly. “Yes, I know, it is laughable. Can you imagine Vincent with a rifle and a kepi, marching across the desert? Yet he was in earnest, and it was not entirely the daydream of a naïf.”

I looked out at the sky beyond the tree, which seemed to be somewhat lighter. “I think the rain may have stopped,” I said, stepping forward from our shelter. Theo followed, collapsing the umbrella as he confirmed that we no longer needed it. We resumed our slow pacing around the vast marble monument to the Bourbons.

“Here is my dilemma,” I suddenly addressed him. “First, I am not Vincent’s doctor, as you know. Dr. Mazery, who has not met Vincent, has authority over him in Auvers. He is a good man, but limited in his experience of mental maladies. Second, I cannot be sure of a diagnosis. There is too much that I do not know. I have no records, no useful observations of your brother’s vagaries. This makes it difficult for me to say conclusively what ails him. Finally, I am deeply concerned. I fear that he could be a danger to those around him. Or a danger to himself.”

I drew a breath to continue, but Theo interrupted me. Ignoring my last statement, he said, “There are his letters. Vincent’s letters to me. The letters in which he proposes he become a legionnaire were very alarming. He had just had an attack, quite a long one. He was terribly discouraged. He was not mad, and yet the logic is so mysterious.” His hand tightened on my elbow. “I know you are busy, Doctor. I know that your other patients and your family take up your time. But if you were inclined, you could go up to Cité Pigalle. Jo could show you the letters. I can give you a note for her—”

He was pleading, so I stopped him. “Monsieur van Gogh, please. Of course I will go to call on Madame van Gogh. As it happens, I can go now, if you think that would be convenient for her.” I went on, thinking aloud. “But do you think … Surely Monsieur Vincent wrote them for your eyes. I hesitate to intrude—”

“No,” he broke in, dismissing my scruples. “If you believe they may be helpful, Doctor, you should read them. Vincent has just spent over a year in an asylum where he was watched all the time. There is no privacy for lunatics.” The term sounded awkward coming from him, old-fashioned and scornful. A thought flickered through my mind: what if Theo were not entirely, selflessly loyal? The man was only human, after all. What could be more natural than some resentment of the burdens his brother imposed on him?

He stood before me now, framed by the arch of one of those marble tombs. “It may help,” he said quietly, nearly whispering. “We must do anything that may help Vincent, anything we can.”

I was moved. I put my arm across his shoulder, turning him away from the grim symbols behind him. I began to walk him toward the street. It must have been past the time for him to open the gallery. “I will go. I will take a note to Madame van Gogh from you, and I will go to your apartment and read some of Vincent’s letters. They may help me to know what ails him. And then we will see.”

I did not promise a cure because I could not, but Theo seemed content with this meager assurance. He scribbled a note to his wife on a slip of paper from his pocket book. I was relieved to see that his handwriting was quite firm.