Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (c. 21 April 1889) ... planted, whether it be good or bad.
I assure you that during those queer days when many things
seem odd to me because my brain is agitated, through it all I
don't dislike old Pangloss.
But you would do me a service by discussing the question
frankly with M. Salles and M. Rey.
I should think that with an allowance of 75 francs or so a
month there must be a way of interning me so that should have
everything I need.
Then, if it is possible, I'd very much like to be able to go
out in the daytime and draw or paint outside. Seeing that I go
out every day now here, and think that this could continue.
Paying more, I warn you, would make me less happy. The
company of other patients, you understand, is not at all
disagreeable to me; on the contrary, it distracts me.
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (24 April 1889) ... will be for the best, and I see no
other way. The power of thought is coming back to me gradually,
but I am much less able to manage practical things than hitherto.
I am absent-minded and could not direct my own life just now.
But let's leave that alone as much as possible. How are things going, are you back?
I must tell you that I think you may find M. Salles' letter still addressed to Rue Lepic.
How are things at home? I think Mother must have been pleased.
I assure you that I am much calmer now that I can tell
myself that you have a companion for good. Above all, do not
imagine that I am unhappy.
I feel deeply that this has been at work within me for a
very long time already, and that other people, seeing symptoms
of mental derangement, have naturally had apprehensions better
founded than my unfounded certainty that I was thinking
normally, which was not the case.
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Wilhelmina van Gogh (30 April 1889) ... not far from here, for three months. I have
had in all four great crises, during which I didn't in the
least know what I said, what I wanted and what I did. Not
taking into account that I had previously had three fainting
fits without any plausible reason, and without retaining the
slightest remembrance of what I felt.
Well, this is bad enough, the fact is that I have been much
calmer since then, and that I am perfectly well physically. I
still feel incapable of taking a new studio. Notwithstanding
this I am working, and have just finished two pictures of the
hospital, one of a ward, a very long ward, with rows of beds
with white curtains, in which some figures of patients are
moving. The walls, the ceiling with big beams, all in white,
lilac-white or green-white. Here and there a window with a pink
or bright green curtain. The floor paved with red bricks. At
the end a door with a crucifix over it. It is all very, very
simple . And then, as a pendant, the inner
court. It is...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (2 May 1889) ... or less the same thing if I were
in the army. Now if I certainly run a great risk here of being
refused because they know that I am a madman or an epileptic
probably for good (though according to what I have heard, there
are 50,000 epileptics in France, only 4,000 of whom are
confined , and so it is not extraordinary), perhaps I
should soon be provided for after speaking, for instance, to
Détaille or Caran d'Ache in Paris. This idea would
really be no wilder than any other, so let's think it over, but
think in order to act. Meanwhile I am doing what I can and I
have good will enough for any kind of work, it does not
matter what, painting included.
Letter from Theo van Gogh to Vincent van Gogh (2 May 1889) ... you
free to go out in order to work.
As for me, I attribute a large part of your disease to the
fact that your material existence has been too neglected. In an
establishment like the one at St. Rémy there will
be approximately the same regularity in the mealtimes and so
on, and I think this regularity will do you no harm - on the
contrary. Now if you should prefer, we might try to get
information about the establishment at Aix or Marseilles in
order to see whether they make other conditions there. What you
ought to know is that from one point of view you are not to be
pitied, though it may not seem so.
How many are there who would be glad of having done the work
you have accomplished; what more do you ask; wasn't it your
cherished wish to create something, and if it was granted you
to make what you have made, then why do you despair that a time
will come when you will do good work again? However bad society
may be at present, there are still ways of living in it;
...
