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Nuenen, 2nd half September 1884
Dear Theo,
You are perfectly right in asking me why I haven't answered
you yet. I certainly did receive your letter with the enclosed
150 francs.
I began writing to you, especially to thank you for
evidently having understood my letter, and then to say that I
only count on 100 francs, though I can hardly manage on it as
long as I do not sell, but nevertheless if it is 150 francs,
there are 50 francs more than I counted on, as our first
arrangement for The Hague was only for 100 francs, and if we
are only partly good friends, I should not want to accept
more.
I could not finish that letter, however, and since then I
have wanted to write you, but simply couldn't. Something
terrible has happened, Theo, which hardly anybody here knows,
or suspects, or may ever know, so for heaven's sake keep it to
yourself. To tell you everything, I should have to write a book
- I can't do it. Margot Begemann took poison in a moment of
despair after she had had a discussion with her family and they
slandered her and me; she became so upset that she did it (in a
moment of decided mania, I think).
Theo, I had already consulted with a doctor once about
certain symptoms of hers; three days before I had secretly
warned her brother that I was afraid she would get brain fever,
and that I was sorry to state that, in my eyes, the Begemann
family acted extremely imprudently in speaking to her the way
they did. This had no effect, at least no other than that they
told me to wait two years, which I decidedly refused to do,
saying that if there was a question of marriage, it had to be
very soon or not at all.
Well, Theo, you have read Mme. Bovary - do you remember the
first Mme. Bovary who died in a nervous attack? Here it
was something like that, but complicated by her having taken
poison.
When we were quietly walking together, she had often said,
“I wish I could die now” - I had never paid any
attention to it.
One morning, however, she slipped to the ground. At first I
thought it was just a weakness. But it got worse and worse.
Spasms, she lost her power of speech, and mumbled all kinds of
things that were only half-intelligible. She collapsed
completely with many jerks and convulsions, and so on. It was
different from an epileptic fit, though there was a great
similarity, and suddenly I grew suspicious, and said,
“Did you happen to swallow something?” She screamed
“Yes!” Well, then I took matters in hand - she
insisted on my swearing that I should never tell anybody - I
said, “That's all right, I'll swear anything you like,
but only on condition that you throw that stuff up immediately
- so put your finger down your throat until you vomit, or else
I'll call the others.” Well, you understand the rest.
That vomiting succeeded only partially, so I went to her
brother Louis and told him what the matter was, and got her an
emetic, and I went immediately to Eindhoven, to Dr. Van der
Loo.
It was strychnine she took, but the dose must have been too
small, or perhaps she took chloroform or laudanum with it as a
narcotic, which would be very counter-poison against
strychnine. But in short, she took the counter-poison which the
doctor prescribed in time. She was at once sent off to a doctor
in Utrecht, and is said to have gone abroad. I think it
probable that she will get entirely well again, but I am
afraid a long period of nervous suffering will follow - in what
form - more or less serious - that is the question. But she is
well taken care of now. You will understand how low I have felt
since this accident. It was such a terrible fright, my boy, we
were alone in the fields when it happened. But fortunately the
poison has at least lost its effect by now.
But for heaven's sake, what should we think of that standing
and of that religion which the respectable people believe in -
oh, they are perfectly absurd, making society a kind of lunatic
asylum, a perfectly topsy-turvy world - oh, that mysticism! You
will understand how everything, everything passed through my
mind these last few days, and how absorbed I was in this sad
story.
Now that she has tried this and failed, I think it has given
her such a fright that she will not readily try it a second
time; the failure of a suicide is the best remedy against a
future suicide. But if she gets brain fever or nervous fever,
then…
But she has been doing rather well these first days; I am
just afraid of bad consequences. Theo, my boy, I am so upset by
it.
Goodbye, write soon, for I speak to nobody here,
Adieu, Vincent
Do you remember that first Mme. Bovary?
At this time, Vincent was 31 year oldSource: Vincent van Gogh. Letter to Theo van Gogh. Written 2nd half September 1884 in Nuenen. Translated by Robert Harrison, edited by Robert Harrison, number 375. URL: https://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/14/375.htm.
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