Leaving Van Gogh Read Online Free PDF

antique pieces I had bought years before—a big Renaissance buffet, a Louis XIII armchair—and Vincent’s eyes passed over them without hesitation. The stained glass I had installed in the north window might as well have been invisible. But I could sense his curiosity when he spotted the portfolios of prints next to the large table I used as a desk.
    I poured a cup of coffee and handed it to him. “Would you care for milk? I would recommend it,” I said. “In fact, I suggest you drink milk every day. Preferably goat’s milk. We have a goat here who keeps us well supplied, and there would be plenty for you.”
    “No, thank you, Doctor,” he said, politely enough.
    “Take a roll, then,” I urged him, “for you must have made a very early start. I will read the letter from your brother.” As I bent my head to Theo’s clear handwriting, I noticed that Vincent seemed to chew with some discomfort. False teeth, I thought. That might explain his thinness, if it hurt him to eat.
    “Can you tell me,” I asked him, “about your stay in Paris? Monsieur Theo said you found it tiring?”
    He gulped the last of his coffee and set the cup neatly in the saucer. “The noise.” He shook his head. “I had forgotten … Or I was so unused to it …” He looked up at me, and again I saw his brother’s gaze, but with greater concentration. “Do you know the South, Doctor?” I nodded. “Then you know how the nights are. The enormous stars, the crickets, that warm air like a current of water, the sense of all the tiny creatures of the night moving around you. Or the days, the afternoons when nothing moves that isn’t tossed by the wind? When the train pulled into the station in Paris, I felt like a little moth, or a tamarisk leaf. Buffeted. So much movement, so much noise, and all of it human! I was completely overwhelmed.”
    I poured more coffee into his cup, but he was so caught up in his description that he didn’t notice. “And then at Theo’s—Well, Doctor, you know what an asylum is like. You do, don’t you?”
    “I do. All those separate people, in their own worlds. It can be terrible, because you cannot make a connection.”
    “True, but at the same time, you owe them nothing. If you feel like howling, you howl. Now imagine going from that to a lovely little bourgeois apartment with a wife who was meeting me for the first time. What kind of impression could I make on her? And then there is the new baby. Everything must be so soft, so controlled!” He shook his head. “I cannot do that, Doctor. At least, not now. I have forgotten how. Theo and Jo live in such a way that, if one draws a breath, the other notices. I am not …” He paused, picking at a bit of rough skin on his thumb. “I am not sufficiently master of myself for that.”
    “Yes,” I answered, careful to sound as if his concerns were ordinary. “I have often noticed what a large task that is. Those of us who manage it completely tend to underestimate the effort involved. Tell me about how you felt in St.-Rémy. Monsieur Theo mentioned that the other patients were a problem?”
    “Not at first,” he answered, picking up a roll. He tore into it, looked at it, and put it down on the tray. “I was very poorly myself, you understand. Did Theo explain?”
    I nodded. “Yes, but it would be helpful to hear how it felt to you at the time.”
    “It’s difficult to explain,” he answered. “There were periods that I don’t remember at all. When I did terrible things.” He gestured to his ear. “This, for instance. I have no memory of that. But more generally, I would say …” His voice trailed off. “Unhappy, of course. I was unhappy. And afraid.” He brightened a bit. “Perhaps you will be able to see from the pictures. The last paintings I did at St.-Rémy were not dry when I left. I am having them sent here. Theo has others, some of the paintings from Arles, and the early ones from St.-Rémy. They may help you to understand.”