Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (c. 12-16 January 1886) ... sending
me at least another 50 fr.
At present I am losing weight, and moreover my clothes are
getting too shabby, etc. You know yourself that it isn't right
as it is. Yet I feel sort of confident that we shall pull
through.
But you wrote that if I fell ill, we should be worse off. I
hope it will not come to that, but I should like to have a
little more ease, just to prevent illness.
Just think how many people there are who exist without ever
having the slightest idea what care is, and who always keep on
thinking that everything will turn out for the best, as if
there were no people starving or completely ruined! I begin to
object more and more to your pretending to be a financier, and
thinking me exactly the opposite. All people are not alike, and
if one does not understand that in drawing up accounts some
time must have passed over the account before one can be sure
to have counted right, if one does not understand this, one is
no calculator....
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (c. 3 February 1886) ... that I am literally worn out and overworked. Just think, I went
to live in my own studio (in Nuenen) on May 1 and I have not
had a hot dinner more than perhaps six or seven times since. I
do not want you to tell Mother that I am not well, for good
reasons, for perhaps she would begin to worry, thinking that it
was not kind to let things happen as they did, namely - that I
did not stay at home to avoid these very consequences.
I will not mention it, so don't you, either.
But I have lived then, and I do here, without
any money for a dinner, because the work costs me too much, and
I have relied too much on my being strong enough to stand
it.
What the doctor tells me is that I absolutely must take
better care of myself and until I feel stronger I must take
more rest.
It is an absolute breakdown.
Now I have made it worse by smoking a great deal, which I
did the more because then one does not feel an empty stomach so
much....
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (1st half February 1886) ... it
wouldn't be any different.
Now, at this moment, I am feeling terribly weak, even worse
than that, from reaction after overwork, but that is the
natural course of things and nothing extraordinary; but as it
is a question of taking better nourishment, etc., you see in
Brabant I shall again spend my last penny on models; it will be
the same story all over again, and I do not think that will be
right. In that way we stray from our path. So please allow me
to come sooner, I should almost say at once.
If I rent a garret in Paris, and bring my paintbox and
drawing materials with me, then I can finish what is most
pressing at once - those studies from the ancients, which
certainly will help me a great deal when I go to Cormon's. I
can go and draw either at the Louvre or at the Ecole des
Beaux-Arts.
For the rest, before settling in a new place, we could plan
and arrange things so much better. If it must be, I am willing
to go to Nuenen for the month of March,...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (15-17 February 1886) ... like, and go
on working here till I leave? I tell you, I am in such a
wretched condition that, if there is any money to spare, let me
look after my health then, and let the rest go, for at home
they can manage just as well with a hired man, even better
perhaps.
If I do not take some nourishing food I am sure to get sick.
It would not be my fault, and indeed I should not care much,
let come what may.
If I go to Brabant, I have the expenses of my journey, I
must also pay for my room there, which I have given up, and
must find another place to store my things, which would be no
less than 50 francs rent, and another 50 francs in advance for
a new storage place and for moving. I should also be obliged to
pay an outstanding colour bill, and of course I should begin to
paint there again.
Now I thought that through force majeure, I am free to
declare myself unable to fulfill those obligations for the
moment, i.e. not to pay my rent there, but say, “Put...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (19 or 20 February 1886) ... to profit from
working at Cormon's.
Then my health, I do not eat when I'm working outdoors, and
I cannot get well. For I frequently relapse; my health is far
from being what it ought to be.
Now as to the expenses, I believe it will be pretty much the
same. So just think it over again - we must act, for we must
put our shoulders to the wheel.
All the time I have been here, I have had a comrade, an old
Frenchman, and I have painted his portrait, which Verlat
approved of, and which you will see. The winter was even worse
for him than for me, and the poor devil is much worse off than
I am because his age makes it very critical.
