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Dear Theo,
I received your letter of June 12 with enclosed 50 fr., and
thank you most kindly. I did not answer you before because I
did not know what turn my illness would take, as I did not
recover as quickly as the doctor had expected. I have already
been here more than two weeks, and I have had to pay for the
next two weeks in advance, though perhaps, if everything goes
well, I can leave in eight or ten days; but in that case I
shall get part of my money back. Now this morning I spoke to
the doctor and asked him if there has been some complication
that would make things worse. He said, No - but rest and a
prolonged stay in the hospital were necessary. But I can assure
you that I am longing dreadfully for the sight of something
green and for some fresh air; an experience like this makes one
feel very weak and faint. I have to lie still almost all the
time. I cannot draw, though I tried several times - it makes me
too feverish. I can read, but I haven't any more books. Well,
there will come an end to this sooner or later, so I must have
patience.
Sien is at Leyden, but I cannot hear from her until she is
confined. What are the sufferings of us men compared to that
terrible pain which women have to bear during childbirth. They
are better than we are at patient suffering, but on the other
hand we are superior in some other things.
I am very glad you were interested in the drawings I sent
you. I worked so hard on them, and on the ones for C. M. also,
those last days when I suffered much more pain and was much
more depressed than since I have been here. For I felt worse
before I went to the hospital, long before.
Now I want to tell you that I've had a letter from Rappard.
Of course I had sent him back the 2.50 guilders at once, and
then he answered me and repeated what he had already said about
my drawings in the studio, namely that he liked them and felt
sympathy for them because of their style and sentiment and
character. He suggested that if I had some more like them, I
should send them to him, as he thought he might be able to find
a buyer. You can imagine that this is what I like best; it does
me so much good when people find some sympathy for my work. For
it is so discouraging and dispiriting, and acts like a damper,
when one never hears, This or that is right, and full of
sentiment and character. It is so cheering to realize that
others feel something of what one has tried to express. Van
Rappard also liked a few of the nude studies.
For the first time in several days I am sitting up again,
and I feel something revive in me while I write. If I were only
well again! If I could only work here, how I should love to
make some studies of the wards. I am now lying in another ward,
without curtains around the beds or cots, and there are
peculiar light effects, especially in the evening or in the
night. The doctor is exactly as I should wish: he looks like
some heads by Rembrandt, a splendid forehead and a very
sympathetic expression. I hope to have learned this much from
him, that in the future I shall try to handle my models the way
he does his patients, namely by getting a firm hold on them and
putting them straightway into the required position. It is
astonishing how much patience he has, massaging the patients
himself, rubbing them with ointment, and handling them in
different ways, infinitely better than a male nurse does, and
how well he knows how to banish their scruples and to make them
do exactly as he wishes. There is one old man who would have
been a superb St. Jerome - a thin, long sinewy, brown wrinkled
body with such very distinct and expressive joints that it
makes one melancholy not to be able to have him for a
model.
I can imagine that Heyerdahl is pleased with such a
reward.
I still have to tell you that Father came to visit me during
my first days here, though it was only a short and very hurried
visit, and I was not able to speak about anything that
mattered. I would have preferred his visiting me another time,
when on both sides we could have enjoyed it more. This way it
was very strange to me, and seemed more or less like a dream,
as does this whole business of lying here ill.
I heard from one of the attendants that Breitner left the
hospital recently.
I believe that the doctor in this ward is a little more
abrupt than in the more expensive wards; so much the better.
Perhaps they are less afraid to hurt the patients a little here
than in the more expensive wards, and, for instance, they often
put a catheter into the bladder quickly, without
“ceremony” or fuss. Well, so much the better, I
think, and I repeat, I find it just as interesting here as in a
third-class waiting room. If only I could work! But I must
submit. I have a book by Dickens and my books on perspective
with me.
I hope you will write again, you know the address is City
Hospital, Brouwersgracht - 4 Class - 6 Ward - No 9.
Adieu, with a handshake in thought and once again many
thanks for your faithful letter and what was enclosed. Have a
good time and believe me, sincerely
Yours, Vincent
I think that I was too nervous when Sien had to leave, and
that it caused a relapse; but there are moments when one cannot
always keep calm. She is so alone there, and I should like so
much to go and see her, for the days must be frightful for
her.
At this time, Vincent was 29 year oldSource: Vincent van Gogh. Letter to Theo van Gogh. Written 22 June 1882 in The Hague. Translated by Mrs. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, edited by Robert Harrison, number 208. URL: https://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/11/208.htm.
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