咱不食言。把高更这一篇回忆文章敲出来,也“给--
老瓦。”
高更后来也跟坡一样,搞起文章的行当,画跟本卖不出去。
Gauguin on Vincent van Gogh
I've been wanting to write about van Gogh for a long time, and one fine day I'll certainly do so, when I am in the mood. For the time being, I'm going to relate certain things about him -
rather, about us - that should rectify a mistake that has been going around certain circles.
Surely it was by chance that in the course of my life several men who kept company with me and had discussions with me have gone mad.
This was the case with the van Gogh brothers; certain parties, out of malice -- others, out of naivete --have attributed their madness to me. Certainly some people can influence their friends to varying degrees, but that's a far cry from causing madness. Long after the catastrophe, Vincent wrote me from the mental asylum where he was being cared for. This is what he said:
"How fortunate you are to be in Paris! That is still where the leading authorities are, and you should certainly consult a specialist to cure you of madness. Aren't we all mad?" It was sound advice, that's why I didn't follow it, no doubt just to be contrary.
Readers of Le Mercure were able to see in a letter of vincent's, published a few years back, how insistent he was about my coming to Arles to start up what he envisioned as a studio with myself at the helm
I was working at the time at Pont-Aven, in Brittany. Whether because the studies I'd begun there created an affinity between me and the place, or because through some vague instinct I foresaw something abnormal, I held out for a long time, until the day came when, won over by vincent's heartfelt protestations of friendship, I started out.
I reached Arles late at night and waited for daybreak in an all-night cafe. The proprietor took one look at me and cried out, "It's you, his friend. I recognize you."
A self-portrait I had sent to Vincent will suffice to account for the owner's outburst. Vincent had shown him my portrait, explaining that it was a friend who would be arriving shortly.
Neither too early nor too late, I went to wake vincent up. The day was given over to settling in, lots of chatter, and strolling about to admire the beauties of Arles and the Arlesiennes(for whom, by the way, I could not work up a great deal of enthusiasm).
We were at work the very next day - he picking up where he'd left off, I starting fresh. Now, I have never had the cerebral facility that others find so effortlessly at the tip of their brush. They step off the train, pick up their palette, and in no time flat you've got a sunlight effect. When it's dry it goes to the Luxembourg, and it's a signed Carolus Duran.
I do not admire such painting, but I admire the man.
He's so confident, so calm.
I'm so undecided, so restless.
Whatever region I'm in, each and every time I've got to have an incubation period to learn the essence of the plants, the trees, all of nature - so varied and capricious, never willing to let herself be divined or revealed.
So, several weeks passed before I clearly grasped the sharp flavor of Arles and its environs. We worked steadily nonetheless, especially Vincent. Between the two of us, one a volcano, the other seething, too, but within, a struggle was brewing.
First of all, I found everything in shocking disarry. His paint box was hardly big enough to hold all of those squeezed tubes, which were never resealed, and despite all that disorder, all that mess, everything on his canvas shone; so did his words. Daudet, de Goncourt, the Bible seared the brain of this Dutchman. In Arles the quays, bridges, boats, the whole south of France became another Holland for him. He even forgot to write in Dutch and, as can be seen from his published letters to his brother, he never wrote in anything but French and did so admirably, with no end of [phrase like] tant que and quant a.
Despite all my efforts to disentangle from that scrambled mind of his a rationale underlying his critical views, I couldn't account for the contradiction between his painting and his opinions. For example, he had boundless admiration for Messonier and a profound loathing of Ingres. Degas was his despair, and Cezanne was nothing but a humbug. The thought of Monticelli brought tears to his eyes.
One of the things that raised his hackles was to be forced to admit that I had great intelligence even though my forehead was too small, a sign of imbecility. And with all that, deep tenderness, or rather, the altruism of the Gospel.
From the very first month I saw our oint finances showing the same symptoms of disorder. How was I to handle this? It was a ticklish situation, as the cash box was being filled, albeit modestly, by his brother, who worked for Goupil's and, for my part, by arranging exchanges of paintings. Something had to be said, and there was no escaping a showdown with that hair-trigger sensitivity of his. I broached the subject, but only with considerable precaution and wheedling that were hardly in keeping with my personality. I must confess, I succeeded far more easily than I expected.
In one box there would be so much for hygienic nighttime strolls [prostitutes], so much for tobacco, so much for unforeseen expenses, including rent. Atop all that a piece of paper and a pencil to jot down honestly what each of us took from the till. In another box, whatever was left over, divided in four, for each week's food allowance. We stopped going to our little restaurant, and with the help of a little gas stove I did the cooking and Vincent did the food shopping, staying fairly close to the house. Once, however, Vincent tried to make some soup, but how he mixed his ingredients I cannot say - probably the way he did his colors on his canvases. At any rate, it wasn't fit for consumption. And my Vincent exclaimed, laughing, "Tarascon! la casquette au pere Daudet!" On the wall he wrote in chalk:
Je suis Saint-Esprit. [I am the Holy Spirit.]
Je suis sain d'esprit. [I am sound of mind.]
How long did we stay together? I couldn't say, having completely forgotten. Although the catastrophe quickly bore down on us and I was working at a fever pitch, that entire period seemed like a century to me.
The public never suspected that two men did tremendous work there, useful to them both. Perhaps to others, too. Certain things bear fruit.
When I arrived at Arles, Vincent was involved with the Neo-Impressionist school. And he was foundering considerably, which distressed him. Not because this school, like all schools, was bad - by no means - but because it did not suit that impatient, independent temperament of his.
With all those yellows on violets, all that work in complementary colors - disordered work on his part - he ended up with nothing but subdued, incomplete, monotonous harmonies; the sound of the clarion was missing.
I set about trying to enlighten him, which was easy, for I found in him a rich and fertile ground. Like all people who are original and marked with the stamp of individuality, Vincent had no fear of those around him and no stubbornness.
From that day forward, my van Gogh made astonishing progress. He seemed to glimpse all that was within him, and that led to the whole series of suns on suns in full sunlight.
"Have you seen the portrait of the poet?
1.Face and hair, chrome yellow;
2.Clothing, chrome yellow;
3.Tie, chrome yellow, with an emerald, green-emerald pin against a
4.Chrome yellow background."
That is what an Italian painter said to me, and he added:"Shit, shit, everything's yellow. I don't know what painting is anymore!"
There's no need to go into details of technique here. I mention this so you'll know that van Gogh, without losing a single ounce of his originality, profited from what I had to teach him. And every day he'd thank me for it. And that's what he meant when he wrote to Monsieur Aurier that he owed a great deal to Paul Gauguin.
When I arrived in Arles, Vincent was still trying to find his way, whereas I, who was much older, was a mature man. I do owe Vincent something, however, and that is the knowledge of having been of use to him, and the confirmation of my earlier ideas about painting; then, too, when the going gets tough, remembering that there's always someone unhappier than oneself...
Toward the end of my stay Vincent became excessively curt and noisy, then tight-lipped. Some nights I caught Vincent, who had gotten up, coming toward my bed.
What caused me to wake up just at that moment?
At any rate, all I had to do was say to him very solemnly, "What's the matter, Vincent?" and without a word he'd slip back into bed and fall into a deep sleep.
I hit upon the idea of painting his portrait while he was at work on the still life he loved so, the one with sunflowers. When I finished the portrait he said, "That's me all right, but me gone mad."
![](./user_images/1243369093_1_.jpg)
Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers, 1897
That very evening we went to the Cafe. He ordered a light absinthe.
Suddenly he threw his glass and its contents at my head. I ducked, and grabbing him bodily in my arms, left the Cafe and crossed Place Victor Hugo. A few minutes later, Vincent found himself in bed and in a few seconds fell asleep. He didn't awaken again until morning.
When he did wake up, he said to me very calmly, "My dear Gauguin, I vaguely remember having offended you last night."
Reply:"I gladly forgive you with all my heart, but there could be a replay of yesterday's scene, and if I were struck I might lose control of myself and throttle you. If I may, I'd like to write to your brother and inform him that I'm coming back."
My God, what a day!
That evening, after a half-hearted attempt at dinner, I felt the need to go out alone and get some fresh air, scented with flowering laurel. I had almost finished crossing Place Victor Hugo when I heard a familiar stride - short, quick, jerky - behind me. Just as I turned around, Vincent rushed toward me, an open razor in his hand. I must have had a daunting look on my face at the time, because he stopped short and, lowing his head, scurried back toward the house.
Was I lax just then? Shouldn't I have disarmed him and tried to calm him down? I've often examined my conscience, and I find nothing to reproach myself for.
Let those who will cast stones.
I darted over to a good hotel in Arles where, after asking what time it was, I booked a room and went to bed.
I was very restless and didn't drop off to sleep until about 3 in the morning. I woke up fairly late, about 7:30.
I went out into the square, where a large crowd had gathered. Near our house, [there were] some policemen and a short gentleman in a bowler hat who was the police commissioner.
This is what had happened.
Van Gogh went back home and immediately cut off his ear close to the head. It must have taken him some time to stanch the hemorrhage, because the following day the floor tiles of the two rooms downstairs were littered with wet towels. There were bloodstrins in the two rooms and on the little staircase leading up to our bedroom.
When he felt up to going out, he covered his head with a Basque beret pulled all the way down and went stright to a certain house where if you didn't know any local women a chance acquaintance could be procured, and gave the "sentry" his ear, which he had thoroughly washed and enclosed in an envelope. "Take this," he said, "in remembrance of me." Then he bolted and headed home, where he went to bed and fell asleep. However, he took the trouble to close the shutters and set a lighted lamp on a table near the window.
Ten minutes later the street set aside from the Filles de joie was in commotion and all abuzz.
I did not have the slightest inkling of all this when I appeared at the threshold of our house and the gentleman in the bowler hat said to me point-blank in a very severe tone of voice, "What have you done to your friend, sir?" "Why, what do you mean?""You know perfectly well what I mean. He's dead."
I would not wich a moment like that on anyone, and it took me a good few minutes to regain my composure and keep my heart from racing.
I was suffocating with anger, indignation, grief as well, and the shame of all those stares tearing me to shreds. "Very well, sir," I stammered. "Let's go upstairs and we'll sort things out up there." vincent ws lying in bed, all curled up and completely lifeless. Gently, ever so gently, I touched his body; its warmth told me that he had to be alive. It was as if all my presence of mind, all my energy, had suddenly come back to me.
Almost in a whisper I said to the police comissioner, "Sir, would you be so kind as to wake this man up with great care, and if he asks for me tell him that I've gone to Paris. The sight of me could be fatal to him."
I must confess that from that moment on, the police commissioner was as reasonable as he could be, and he wisely sent for a doctor and a carriage.
Once he was awake, Vincent asked for his comrade, his pipe and tobacco, and even thought of asking for the cash box we kept downstairs. A suspicion, no doubt, but one that only grazed me, armed as I already was against all suffering.
Vincent was taken to the hospital. As sson as he got there, his mind started to wander again.
Anyone interested in this knows all the rest. There's no need to discuss it further, except to mention the extreme suffering of a man who was cared for in an insane asylum, yet who regained enough of his reason at monthly intervals to understand his condition and furiously paint the wonderful pictures people are now so familiar with.
The last letter I got from him as dated Auvers, near Pontoise. He told me that he had hoped to recover enough to visit me in Brittany, but that now he had to admit that a cure was impossible.
"Dear Master (the only time he ever uttered that word), after having known you and caused you distress, it is more dignified to die in a sound state of mind than a deteriorated one."
And he shot himself in the stomach with a pistol. It was not until a few hours later, lying in bed and puffing on his pipe, that he died, with complete lucidity of mind, with love for his art and without any hatred for others.
In Les Monstres, Jean Dolent writes, "When Gauguin says 'Vincent,' his voice is gentle."
Without knowing it, but having guessed it, Jean Dolent is right. We know why.
Avant et Après, written 1902, published 1923