My dear Theo, my dear Jo,
Thank you for your letter, which I received this morning,
and for the fifty francs which were in it.
Today I saw Dr. Gachet again and I am going to paint at his
house on Tuesday morning, then I shall dine with him and
afterwards he will come to look at my painting. He seems very
sensible, but he is as discouraged about his job as a country
doctor as I am about my painting. Then I said to him that I
would gladly exchange job for job. Anyway I am ready to believe
that I shall end up being friends with him. Well, the moment when I shall need him may
certainly come, however up to now all is well. And things may
yet get better, I still think that it is mostly a malady of the
South that I have caught, and that the return here will be
enough to dissipate the whole thing. Often, very often, I think
of your little one and then I start wishing he was big enough
to come to the country. For it is the best system to bring them
up there. How I do wish that you, Jo and the little one would
take a rest in the country instead of the customary journey to
Holland.
Yes, I know quite well that Mother will insist on seeing the
little one, and that is certainly a reason for going, but she
would surely understand if it was really better for the
baby.
Here one is far enough from Paris for it to be real country,
but nevertheless how changed since Daubigny. Yet not changed in
an unpleasant way, there are many villas and various modern
bourgeois houses, very radiant and sunny and covered with
flowers.
This in an almost lush country, just at the moment when a
new society is developing in the old, is not at all unpleasing;
there is much well-being in the air. I see or think I see in it
a quiet like that of Puvis de Chavannes, no factories, but
lovely greenery in abundance and well kept.
I have a drawing of an old vine, from which I
intend to make a canvas of size 30, and a
study of pink chestnuts and one of white
chestnuts. But if circumstances allow it, I
hope to work a little at the figure. Some pictures present
themselves vaguely to my mind, which it will take time to get
clear, but that will come bit by bit. If I had not been ill, I
should have written to Bock and Isaäcson long
ago.
My trunk has not yet arrived, which annoys me. I sent a wire
this morning.
I thank you in advance for the canvas and paper. Yesterday
and today it has been wet and stormy, but it is not unpleasant
to see these effects again. The beds have not arrived either.
But in spite of these annoyances, I feel happy at not being far
from you two and my friends any longer. I hope you are well. It
seemed to me however that you had less appetite than formerly,
and according to what the doctors say, constitutions like ours
need very solid nourishment. So be sensible about this,
especially Jo too, having her child to nurse. Really she ought
to eat at least double, it would not at all be overdoing it
when there are children to bring into the world and rear.
Without that it is like a train going slowly where the line is
straight. Time enough to reduce steam when the line is more
uneven.
A handshake in thought from
Yours, Vincent
At this time, Vincent was 37 year oldSource: Vincent van Gogh. Letter to Theo van Gogh. Written 25 May 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise. Translated by Robert Harrison, edited by Robert Harrison, number 637. URL: https://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/21/637.htm.
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