The Last Van Gogh (11 page)

He painted quickly, as he always did, his head popping out every now and then from his easel. His palette was suspended in front of him, the mounds of pigment piling over the canvas like rosebuds, his wrist flexing in an exuberant dance.

I wished that I could be in two places at once, still maintaining my position as his subject, but also seeing how he was progressing with the painting. I could not stop wondering what the finished canvas would look like. Would he simply try to capture my physical resemblance, or would he try to go beyond that and reveal something in me that I had not even seen in myself?

Father and Paul came out to the garden just as the sun was beginning to dip under the clouds. I could feel the moisture beginning to penetrate the air. The daylilies were beginning to close, and the crickets were beginning to chirp.

Vincent remained hunched behind the canvas. His oil rag was dropped on the ground and his brown boots were spotted in paint.

I felt as though my legs were about to crumble. I was exhausted but I refused to give in to my weary limbs. I would wait until he was done.

He did not announce when he was finished, though I knew both Papa and Paul were expecting a wild
“Fini!”
to emerge from his lips. Vincent did as I suspected he would. He placed his brush on the lip of his easel and stepped away and looked at the canvas. He nodded to me, then wiped his hands with a rag.

“Thank you, Mademoiselle Gachet,” he called out. “I hope I haven’t exhausted you.”

“Oh, no,” I gushed and I began walking toward him.

I came closer, my feet treading softly over the grass.

I was silent for several seconds as I examined the painting. It was not what I had expected. He had not taken pains to draw in my features, or to show the various planes of my face and the dips and curves of my figure. But he caught something of me, something more private—and less obvious than my physical countenance. He had portrayed me as I saw myself—waiting in my garden, my arm outstretched as if I were inviting someone to accept my hand.

The painting was quiet. Almost painfully still. I stood alone, my white dress submerged behind an audience of flowers and leaves, my hair and yellow hat flaming above my head like a halo.

“Does it please you, mademoiselle?”

I felt my body shiver as I tried to find the right words to reply. I did not know what I could say. I could not tell him that I thought he had made me look beautiful. I could not tell him that he had rendered my features in a most exacting manner. All of that would have been untrue.

“I look lonely,” I said.

Before I had even finished, I saw Father’s eyes condemning me. “Marguerite!” he blasted. “How dare you insult our guest!”

“I’m sorry, but…” I felt my face grow hot and the tears begin to pool in the rims of my eyes.

“You shouldn’t be sorry,” Vincent said to me quickly. Then he stated, “She’s right. I have painted her alone.” His voice fell hard against the last word. “A white pillar among a sea of vines and flowers.”

Paul came closer to the canvas and squinted.

“Monsieur Van Gogh, I think you’ve forgotten to paint in her mouth.”

Vincent looked sharply at my brother and his annoyance was palpable. “I have not forgotten anything! There are reasons for such omissions!”

I could see Paul’s embarrassment immediately. Red streaks radiated up from his collar and his cheeks were flushed scarlet.

“Yes, yes,” my father said appeasingly. “Of course there is a psychology to your paintings that might not be apparent to a less sophisticated eye. Please excuse my son’s naïveté when it comes to painting. He is learning, after all.”

Papa patted Paul on the back. “Vincent has done a marvelous painting of your sister.”

Vincent’s paint box snapped shut. He was kneeling on the grass collecting the odds and ends that went in his rucksack. But instead of acknowledging my father’s remarks, I saw him look up from his things and sneak one last peek at me.

I was standing only inches away from him. His body was curled like a fiddlehead fern over his wooden painter’s box and sack of things. As he rose, he reminded me of a sunflower, his straw hat rising as he straightened his spine.

“I would like to give you this portrait of your daughter,” Vincent said reverently to Papa. “And also the painting I did last week of your garden.”

The expression on Father’s face suddenly changed. He was beaming at the prospect of obtaining some new paintings for his collection.

“You’ve been so kind in helping me here in Auvers. Since I cannot pay you your normal wage, I hope you’ll consider these canvases a token of my appreciation.”

Father took a firm hold of Vincent’s hand. “It would be my honor,” he said as he clasped his fingers around Vincent’s. “I will display them proudly.”

“I would also like to begin a portrait of you, Doctor. Perhaps an interior scene with you sitting at your desk….”

Now Father’s face became as rosy as a child’s. He could not contain his delight.

“Oh, I’m so happy you asked, Vincent!” he said. “You just tell me the time and I shall make myself at your complete disposal.”

“And perhaps another opportunity to paint your daughter again,” he said, this time with a voice that was softer, perhaps a bit more nervous than when he asked Papa to sit for him.

“Marguerite? Again? You wish to paint Marguerite again?” Father was visibly perplexed. “Why, if you wish to paint another portrait after mine, Vincent, why don’t you paint Paul’s? He will be done with his exams in only a few short weeks.”

Paul had been standing there the whole time almost motionless. After Vincent had seemed irritated by his comments about the painting of me, Paul had not uttered a word. Now, suddenly everyone went quiet waiting for Vincent’s response.

“Out of no disrespect to you, Doctor, I hope you will allow me to pick who I wish to paint.”

Father suddenly turned red, clearly embarrassed not only by his error, but also for his young son, who now seemed more pained than ever.

At that moment I too felt quite badly for my brother. I knew Father had embarrassed him with his presumptuous request, but even more humiliating was Vincent’s obvious lack of interest in painting him.

But there was also something in me that felt strangely gratified to be the recipient of Vincent’s attention. Paul had had years of coddling from Madame Chevalier, while she had treated me with complete disregard. And Papa’s affection had always leaned toward my brother, especially now that he was trying to cultivate a certain artistic talent. So Vincent’s kindness toward me was something that I relished, even if it did appear to upset Paul.

“Will you be needing anything else this evening?” Father was the one to finally break the awkward silence.

“I just want to thank you for allowing me to paint your daughter. It has been such a pleasure to be able to get back to my work and finally be inspired again.”

I could feel Vincent’s eyes stealing a glance at me.

I wondered if Father noticed, too, as minutes later, he motioned for Paul and me to go inside. “Children, if you’ll excuse Vincent and me for a moment, I need to speak to him in private.”

“Of course, Papa,” I said demurely. I curtsied in Vincent’s direction and said good-bye. Paul followed awkwardly behind.

Upon reaching the house, I turned to close the door behind us, but as I did, I noticed Papa reaching into his breast pocket and retrieving a glass vial. He pressed the flask into Vincent’s hand. I saw Vincent shake his head and try to push the vial back into Father’s hand, the two of them going back and forth like that for several seconds. Eventually, Vincent acquiesced. He placed the vial in his breast pocket and then he and Father walked down the garden stairs.

FOURTEEN

Foxgloves

I
T
always amazed me how, despite the lovely weather we had in spring and summer in Auvers, the first floor of our house always seemed dark. The heavy wool drapes allowed little light to penetrate the rooms. The bric-a-brac of Father’s keepsakes—his brass compasses, his antique stethoscopes, the left-behind figures that Cézanne had used in a still life—littered the shelves. There were canvases painted by Pissarro. One of chestnut trees poking through the fog, another of a ferry gliding through pewter waters. Crowded next to them were studies by Cézanne—a table full of apples and pears, a vase overflowing with white dahlias—and a painting of the houses on our street, the terra-cotta rooflines set against a blue-white sky. Father had hung these canvases so closely together that the room resembled the basement of the Louvre.

When sitting in our parlor, I always felt my lungs struggling to breathe. But Father’s gloom was often more stifling than the clutter. There were times when no one from our household—including Madame Chevalier—could rouse him from his despair.

“I need my solitude! Can’t a man have any peace?” he would holler at Paul or me if we disturbed him. He would sit for hours in the same parlor chair with the lamps unlit, a book half-opened on his lap, and his face turned away.

In the months before Vincent arrived, Father’s bouts of depression appeared more frequently. If Father was truly as depressed as he appeared, his self-medication was obviously not working, and I could not help but wonder how Father could treat patients if he failed to successfully treat himself.

Sometimes his tinctures did prove effective and he would rebound with tremendous energy. He’d be so ebullient that neither Paul nor I nor even Madame Chevalier could match his desire for constant activity. But other times the medicine had the opposite effect: he would appear more agitated and nervous after taking his self-prescribed medicine. On more than one occasion, I caught him trying to control his shaking hands.

I noticed that, in the few weeks since Vincent’s arrival, Papa had been making his foxglove tincture more regularly. I was not sure if he was making the herbal remedy for himself or for Vincent. But due to the volume of his production, I suspected it was for them both.

He would get up early in the morning and get out his jar of powdered leaves, his bottle of chloroform water, his solution of sodium carbonate. I would wander downstairs and find him at my worktable, shaking the solution under the haze of a kerosene lamp before eventually passing the liquid through a flannel sleeve.

The foxglove always made him temporarily energetic. He would have bouts of productivity, when he would feel the need to rearrange his library or organize his collection of prints with an almost maniacal frenzy. I suspected he had given himself another dosage the night after Vincent painted me.

I had made a small quiche, with tiny roasted potatoes and haricots verts. It was not unusual that Father failed to compliment the meal. He rarely did, and I did not expect this time to be any different. What was different was how he continued to stare at me throughout the course of the dinner.

I noticed he lifted his eyes from his plate every few seconds. But he squinted as if scrutinizing me. I knew he was straining to see why Vincent had been so intent on painting me.

I kept my eyes firmly on the table and gave him no reason to find annoyance with me. Yet when the time came for me to clear the plates, he looked at me again, this time saying in a clear, sharp voice: “Have you heard, Marguerite? Vincent has promised to paint me, too.”

I nodded to him and told him how pleased I was to hear such good news.

“He will do a portrait of me.”

“Such an honor, Papa.”

Madame Chevalier clasped her hands. “How wonderful, Paul-Ferdinand!” I could see her foot tapping against her daughter’s leg underneath the tablecloth, prompting Louise-Josephine to applaud Father’s good news.

“Yes, congratulations,” Louise-Josephine said to Papa. She turned her head in his direction and lifted her eyes demurely to his. “
Maman
is right, it is quite an honor.” She nodded her head to him and smiled before lifting her napkin to her lips, blotting them daintily before returning to her meal.

Papa nodded his head to Louise-Josephine and smiled back at her. He looked quite pleased with the respect that Louise-Josephine showed him.

“When does Vincent intend to come?” Madame Chevalier asked.

“He wants to start tomorrow. Last night when I walked him home he asked me to sit a few moments at the inn. He came downstairs and within a few minutes produced a brilliant etching of me on a tiny scrap of metal!”

“And again he wants to come tomorrow?” Madame Chevalier clucked her tongue. “He can’t wait to paint you!”

She poured more wine into Father’s glass. The black cloth of her sleeve dangled close to the rim. I could smell her toilet water—as her hand reached across to Papa—a combination of roses and clove. It was far too strong.

“He certainly is prolific,” Papa continued. “He’s been here two weeks and already several canvases completed!”

I saw Paul twist his mouth in a sour expression. “Doesn’t seem quite normal to me,” he said underneath his breath.

“One can never understand the artist’s mind completely.” Father looked squarely at him. He had obviously heard what Paul had muttered. “It is not for us to judge…. Anyway, I’ve just given him a dose of digitalis and that should help prevent any epileptic fits.”

“Epilepsy?” I gasped. It was the first time Father had mentioned it and I couldn’t hide my alarm. But the remark about the digitalis confirmed that he was giving the foxglove to Vincent as well. After all, I knew he made the medicine from the plant.

“Yes,” Father said gravely. “He had several bad bouts of it back in Arles. Though it might have been a lingering effect of his absinthe addiction.” Papa sighed. “Regardless, I promised his brother I’d tinker with a little preemptive medicine. A little digitalis will help soothe his nerves…even I take it now and then.”

He took another swallow of wine.

“I’m just relieved he seems to be so contented here. And now with another portrait in the works…of me, no less…he seems to be well on his way to complete recovery. I’ll have to take a little credit for that!” He placed his glass down and winked at Madame Chevalier.