Leaving Van Gogh

Thirteen





ON THE WEDNESDAY MORNING after that incident in the wheat field, I took the earliest train back to Paris. Auvers is especially beautiful early in the morning. You could believe yourself in an idyllic rural landscape—a Corot perhaps—graced with soft hills, delicate trees, and the long shadows of dawn. When the train comes steaming into the Chaponval station, I am often startled by the noisy, insistent embodiment of the modern era. But then I sit in my accustomed seat and begin to cast my thoughts forward to my Parisian life: which patients will require which treatment, where I will dine that night, and the like.

The train moves slowly on the stretch between Auvers and Pontoise. Often one glimpses fishermen or a boy with a dog plunging through the brush. I was watching idly for such activity when I saw a figure whose presence there chilled me. I can still summon the image—a slender, red-haired man in a blue shirt, gazing into the green water of the Oise from a crumbling stone embankment. I might have been able to deceive myself and pretend it wasn’t Vincent, had he not turned his head toward the train as it passed. It was undoubtedly Vincent’s face. He was looking not upward at the passengers but downward, at the wheels.

Perhaps he was simply watching the train, as one does, thinking about voyages. Possibly his thoughts were of travel to Paris, to the South, even to the Netherlands—places where he had lived and where he might go to escape his current plight. Yet there was an air of tension and purpose about him. I thought I could see calculation in the way his eyes followed the engine, ton upon ton of rattling, hot steel. For a moment I imagined standing next to the track, watching the tall black machine approaching, waiting and waiting until it could stop no longer, then diving beneath it …

I didn’t think it was possible. The train moved too slowly here. You could not, I thought, count on finishing things. If you lay on the tracks too early, the conductor might be able to stop. The chances of being hideously maimed but still living seemed too high.

I turned back to face the front of the car, feeling strangely drained. In that moment, when I had spotted Vincent, I had experienced a surge of energy. I wished to call out to him or even, somehow, to take him by the shoulders and whisk him out of danger. As the train continued to clatter toward Pontoise, my heart raced and my hands trembled.

I had not actually witnessed a suicide attempt, I told myself. I had seen a man watching a train. Maybe Vincent was planning a new painting, one that contrasted the clattering might of the engine with the delicacy of the willow trees. But Vincent had never, that I knew of, shown much interest in machines. He could certainly have been idling away the morning, perhaps waiting until the dew burned off before setting out with his easel. But Vincent was never idle. If he was not painting, he was planning a painting or retouching canvases or sketching or reading or writing letters or looking for a new motif. His every activity had a purpose. Dawdling by the bank of a river waiting for something to happen was a young man’s pastime.

The train slowed further and pulled into the Pontoise station. An old acquaintance entered my compartment at that point, and I was distracted as we exchanged news. During our conversation, my thoughts occasionally strayed back to Vincent and what he might have been doing by the train tracks, but I was relieved to have a diversion.

I was so accustomed to traveling back and forth between Auvers and Paris that I automatically navigated through streets and stations at either end of the voyage without a thought for my surroundings. On this morning my eye was caught by a pair of men who happened to collide near one of the cast-iron columns in the departure hall of the Gare du Nord. It did not look as if the contact had been jarring, but one of the men fell to the floor. I was in a hurry, and they were not near me, so I intended to continue on my way, until the cluster of frock coats parted and I thought I glimpsed Theo van Gogh’s face.

Instantly I drew nearer and saw that I was correct. “Excuse me, I am a doctor, and I know this man. May I be of service?” I asked in a loud voice. The gentlemen who had gathered stepped back instantly. Theo looked up at me.

“Dr. Gachet!” he exclaimed and clambered somewhat awkwardly to his feet. He bent down to pick up the flat leather case with a handle lying on the floor next to him and staggered.

I held out a hand to steady him, but he had already straightened. “Are you hurt?” I asked.

“No, not at all,” he said, trying to brush at the knees of his trousers. Yet the movement set him off balance again. “I am just trying to catch a train, and I was not paying attention to where I was going.” The small crowd around us was drifting away since there was clearly nothing more to be seen.

“Where are you going so early in the morning?” I asked, looking carefully at him. He seemed thinner, almost gaunt, and his face was very pale.

“I have an appointment in Brussels,” he said. “But I did not allow enough time to get here, and I am afraid I have missed the train. It leaves at eight thirty-five.”

We both turned to look at the huge station clock, which was showing just that time. A whistle blew, and a train slowly pulled away from a platform. “Damn!” Theo exclaimed.

“How often do they run?” I asked. “Perhaps you can catch the next one, and send a telegram to put off your appointment.”

“No doubt, Doctor,” he said. But he stood still.

I looked around. Living near the station, I had never entered the waiting room, but in tall letters above a double door I could see the sign: SALLE D’ATTENTE. “Why don’t you go and sit down? I will find out when the next train leaves. And I could send the telegram for you, if you would like, though I begin to think that you should delay the trip until you feel better.”

He turned to me and clutched my shoulder. “No, I must go today. But I will rest for a moment. You can just bring me the form for the telegram, I’ll write it myself.”

To my surprise, I was irritated. He seemed unwell, yet determined on a course of action that would worsen his health. He was as stubborn as his brother, and just as misguided.

“Monsieur van Gogh, why are you going to Brussels? It is a tiring voyage. Didn’t you just take Madame van Gogh and the baby to Holland?”

“Yes, Doctor, but I have an appointment to try to sell a painting. I have no choice. I will go and sit down as you suggest, and then I will be perfectly fine. But I would be grateful if you could help me with the telegram.”

He turned away from me and walked toward the waiting room. His gait was unsteady, but perhaps only a doctor would have noticed.

It took me a few minutes to find the telegraph office, but happily for Theo, the next train to Brussels left only an hour later than the one he had missed.

“That is a great relief,” he told me when I returned to the waiting room. “I will not have to delay this appointment by very much.” He leaned his head against the back of the bench where we were seated.

“Is it so very important that you go today? Forgive me, but you seem unwell. You need to take care of yourself. Many people depend on you.”

He lifted a hand wearily. “I am trying to sell a painting, Doctor. That is my job, and those people who depend on me will be more likely to eat if I can persuade a banker in Belgium to buy this little canvas.” He tapped the case at his side. “It is a Diaz, a pretty thing. I imagine you would find it insipid, compared to Vincent’s work. But it is appealing.” He straightened up and held out a hand. “Could you give me the form for the telegram?”

Wordlessly I handed him the square of paper. He took out a pen and flattened the form on the wood of the bench between us. I tried not to watch as he began to fill in the address at the top. There is not a great deal of room between the lines on these blank telegrams. One must write neatly. Syphilitics cannot do this. They seem unable to judge the size of their letters and often crowd the words at the end of a line.

I gazed up at the faraway ceiling, where a pigeon fluttered restlessly, searching for a place to roost. Beside me Theo muttered something. I heard the pen clattering to the floor.

I could not help looking down at the telegram form, where a large blot of ink almost hid the uneven letters.

Theo crumpled up the form. “I hope you brought more than one, Doctor,” he said. “My handwriting has become erratic.” His eyes met mine. It was a clear admission. I reached into my pocket and held out the spare forms I had taken from the office, just in case.

Silence fell between us.

“Are you saying …” I paused.

“You knew. I have seen you watching me. You recognized the signs. You brought those.” He gestured to the small squares of paper in my hand.

I nodded. “I did.”

Once again we were silent. When the door to the waiting room opened, the station’s roar filled the room and died with the hiss of a train coming to a halt on the tracks. A couple dressed for traveling came in, with their little girl between them. They settled her on a bench and she pointed upward, to where the pigeon was still flying in circles.

“Sometimes I feel better, Doctor. I was sure for so long that I was cured. I would never have married Jo otherwise, you know. And now …” He raised a hand to his eyes. “Forgive me, I am overwrought. Perhaps you could write the telegram for me.” He held out the pen.

“I am sure you should not go to Brussels,” I said. “What will happen if you have a mishap there? You might drop that painting. You could fall in the street.” I found myself torn by several emotions: pity, anxiety, and impatience. I could hardly have named which was strongest.

“Doctor, what you do not seem to grasp is that I have no choice.” Theo’s voice came firmly. “No choice. Put yourself in my place. What would you do?”

“You will be no good to your family if you collapse.” I tried to sound reasonable. “Can you not put off this trip?”

“Until when?” He looked at me and shrugged. He glanced around the vast room, gauging if we could be overheard. “Let us be blunt, Doctor,” he said in a low voice. “I have the pox. I am very ill. There are periods of respite, when I feel better, but I will never be really well again.” He looked to me, as if for confirmation.

I nodded. “The muscular disturbances …”

“Some men recover from this. Some men live this way for months, or even years, but they require help. I may not be able to work.” He spoke with a clarity and a despair that pierced my heart. I had thought of Theo as gentle, the loving brother whose patience knew no limit, the adoring husband and father. This pale, trembling man beside me was almost fierce, despite his obvious physical fragility.

“But, Monsieur van Gogh,” I protested weakly. “Surely not. You’re under a doctor’s care, of course?”

He reached out and grasped my wrist. His palm felt hot. “Doctor, please permit me.…” He took a breath and glanced unseeing at the doors. “Since we have begun this conversation … I would not have brought this up. The shame, you understand. But you are a man of medicine. Please pay me the compliment of honesty.”

What could I do? I nodded. He went on. “I may very well die.” His expression tightened, and he swallowed, then looked off in the distance again, turned away from me. “I will probably die.” I sensed that he was talking as much to himself as to me. “Thus I must go to Brussels and sell this painting, so that there may be something for Johanna and little Vincent and for my brother, Heaven help them all, something beyond the enormous trove of Vincent’s paintings.” There was a hardness to his tone of voice and a bitter twist to his mouth that startled me.

“Do I surprise you?” he asked, responding, I suppose, to my expression. “Imagine it, Doctor. I love my brother, I do. But my days, it appears, are numbered. And my concern for Vincent, my support of him, will have the terrible effect of robbing my wife. I cannot help thinking this. I have added it up, over and over again. A hundred fifty francs a month for ten years. I am not even including his paints and canvases, I could not begin to reckon that sum. I have spent well over twenty thousand francs to permit Vincent to paint. That is money that Jo will not have when I am gone. Instead, she will have hundreds upon hundreds of canvases that cannot be sold!” His voice was rising now, and it was my turn to glance around, but no one was paying any heed to this frail-looking man haranguing his companion.

“But perhaps, in time …,” I ventured. “Vincent’s work is so new, so … so progressive, perhaps the critics will come around. There is already Aurier who recognized him.”

“It is possible,” Theo conceded. “I no longer think I know. Sometimes I am sure he is a genius. Sometimes I doubt my judgment. What if, after all, he is simply inept?” He crumpled the ruined telegram form. “It doesn’t matter. I must go and try to sell this picture.” Again he held the pen to me. This time I took it and filled out the form as Theo directed me.

As I wrote the address and the simple message, my mind was reeling. Theo believed in Vincent. Surely he did! This talk of finding his paintings “inept” was careless, something Theo said for effect, or driven by his own grief and fear. I thought back to our visit to see the canvases in Tanguy’s attic. On that occasion Theo had spoken ardently about his brother’s genius. I did not think his admiration had been feigned.

When I had finished, we stood up. Theo seemed a little bit stronger, and he held the case firmly under his arm. The canvas could not have been very large. I wondered what price he hoped to get for it. I held the heavy waiting-room door for him and saw him steady himself on its brass handle as he passed through. I slipped the case from under his arm, and he did not protest as I tucked it under my own.

Then something occurred to me. “You must not tell Vincent.”

Theo shook his head, looking straight ahead into the crowd. “He knows.”

I stopped and dropped Theo’s arm. I stepped away from him slightly. “You told him?”

Theo seemed puzzled by my reaction. “Yes. I thought he should know.”

“But he is ill.” A young boy wearing a page’s uniform from one of the big hotels ran past us, not even looking back as he knocked into the case at my side.

“Yes. And so am I,” Theo said patiently.

“But you cannot … you should not have burdened him with this!” I went on, my voice shrill in my ears.

“Dr. Gachet, Vincent is my brother. I wanted him to know. This is important. We share things, Vincent and I.”

“But he is …” I looked up at the vault of the roof, so far away. A whistle pierced the air in the distance, and a train moved off down a track. “Don’t you see how this will affect him? He is so fragile! You know he cannot paint anymore?”

This was obviously news to Theo. He shook his head. Yet his face was hard.

I went on, pressing my point. “He cannot paint. He has been sitting in front of an easel for days on end, trying to will his fingers to pick up a paintbrush. Can you imagine how he feels?”

“Am I to have nothing of my own?” cried Theo, his voice rising above the din. “I am going to die. I am not yet thirty-five. I will leave a wife and son unprovided for. Against this you set the fact that my brother cannot paint?”

“Painting is life for him,” I said quietly. “He has nothing else, nothing. You know that.” I held out the case that contained the painting. “You may die or you may not. If Vincent cannot paint, he most certainly will. One way or another.”

Theo accepted the case, which quivered a little bit as he held it against his side. “I had hoped, when I told him, that Vincent might be sympathetic,” he said, looking down at the marble floor. A corner of a yellow ticket lay by his foot. He tried to guide his foot toward it. I could tell that he wanted to move it, simply slide it an inch on the polished gray stone. The foot twitched, and he gave up. He went on very quietly. I could barely hear him. “We had gone for a walk, that day he came to Paris. I don’t want Jo to know yet. She is so happy with the baby.” His face momentarily softened. “I cannot bring myself to spoil this happy time for her. There is nothing she can do, in any event. But Vincent should begin to think ahead and consider what he will do without me. I had to tell him as we walked along the street. Vincent has a kind heart. I know he does. He loved our mother very much.” He took a breath and looked up at me. Now there was bewilderment on his face. “But he was not concerned about me at all. He did not seem to understand what I was telling him. All he could see was that, if I died, he would not have my money anymore. He did not—It did not seem to occur to him that, if I died, he would not have a brother anymore.”

“What worries me,” I said flatly, “is that if Vincent has his way, you will not have a brother anymore. This morning I saw him roaming around the train tracks. I fear he may try to do away with himself.”

I saw him flinch. I felt a moment’s pity. No, it would be more precise to say that for a moment my pity shifted from Vincent to Theo. I had gone too far, perhaps. But Theo had been wrong to burden Vincent with this news.

Theo’s eyes met mine. I could no longer read his expression. It was as if a door had closed. “I must go send the telegram,” he said. “Don’t trouble to come with me.” He turned and walked unsteadily through the crowd, a thin, upright figure clutching a flat leather case.