“Decorative art,” snorted Vincent. “If that’s all you get out of nature, you ought to go back to the Stock Exchange.”
“If I do, I’ll come hear you preach on Sunday mornings. What do you get out of nature, Brigadier?”
“I get motion, Gauguin, and the rhythm of life.”
“Well, we’re off.”
“When I paint a sun, I want to make people feel it revolving at a terrific rate of speed. Giving off light and heat waves of tremendous power. When I paint a cornfield I want people to feel the atoms within the corn pushing out to their final growth and bursting. When I paint an apple I want people to feel the juice of that apple pushing out against the skin, the seeds at the core striving outward to their own fruition!”
“Vincent, how many times have I told you that a painter must not have theories.”
“Take this vineyard scene, Gauguin. Look out! Those grapes are going to burst and squirt right in your eye. Here, study this ravine. I want to make people feel all the millions of tons of water that have poured down its sides. When I paint the portrait of a man, I want them to feel the entire flow of that man’s life, everything he has seen and done and suffered!”
“What the devil are you driving at?”
“At this, Gauguin. The fields that push up the corn, and the water that rushes down the ravine, the juice of the grape, and the life of a man as it flows past him, are all one and the same thing. The sole unity in life is the unity of rhythm. A rhythm to which we all dance; men, apples, ravines, ploughed fields, carts among the corn, houses, horses, and the sun. The stuff that is in you, Gauguin, will pound through a grape tomorrow, because you and a grape are one. When I paint a peasant labouring in the field, I want people to feel the peasant flowing down into the soil, just as the corn does, and the soil flowing up into the peasant. I want them to feel the sun pouring into the peasant, into the field, into corn, the plough, and the horses, just as they all pour back into the sun. When you begin to feel the universal rhythm in which everything on earth moves, you begin to understand life. That alone is God.”
“Brigadier,” said Gauguin, “vous avez raison!”
Vincent was at the height of his emotion, quivering with febrile excitement. Gauguin’s words struck him like a slap in the face. He stood there gaping foolishly, his mouth hanging open.
“Now what in the world does that mean, ‘Brigadier, you are right?’”
“It means I think it about time we adjourned to the cafe for an absinthe.”
At the end of the second week Gauguin said, “Let’s try that house of yours tonight. Maybe I can find a nice fat girl.”
“Keep away from Rachel. She belongs to me.”
They walked up the labyrinth of stone alleys and entered the Maison de Tolerance. When Rachel heard Vincent’s voice, she skipped down the hallway and threw herself into his arms. Vincent introduced Gauguin to Louis.
“Monsieur Gauguin,” said Louis, “you are an artist. Perhaps you would give me your opinion of the two new paintings I bought in Paris last year.”
“I’d be glad to. Where did you buy them?”
“At Goupils, in the Place de l’Opéra. They are in this front parlour. Will you step in, Monsieur?”
Rachel led Vincent to the room on the left, pushed him into a chair near one of the tables, and sat on his lap.
“I’ve been coming here for six months,” grumbled Vincent, “and Louis never asked my opinion about his pictures.”
“He doesn’t think you are an artist, fou-rou.”
“Maybe he’s right.”
“You don’t love me any more,” said Rachel, pouting.
“What makes you think that, Pigeon?”
“You haven’t been to see me for weeks.”
“That was because I was working hard to fix the house for my friend.”
“Then you do love me, even if you stay away?”
“Even if I stay away.”
She tweaked his small, circular ears, then kissed each of them in turn.
“Just to prove it, fou-rou, will you give me your funny little ears? You promised you would.”
“If you can take them off, you can have them.”
“Oh, fou-rou, as if they were sewed on, like my dolly’s ears.”
There was a shout from the room across the hall, and the noise of someone screaming, either in laughter or in pain. Vincent dumped Rachel off his lap, ran across the hall and into the parlour.
Gauguin was doubled up on the floor, convulsed, tears streaming down his face. Louis, lamp in hand, was gazing down at him, dumbfounded. Vincent crouched over Gauguin and shook him.
“Paul, Paul, what is it?”
Gauguin tried to speak, but could not. After a moment he gasped, “Vincent . . . at last . . . we’re vindicated . . . look . . . look . . . up on the wall . . . the two pictures . . . that Louis bought from Goupils . . . for the parlour of his brothel. They are both Bouguereaus!”
He stumbled to his feet and made for the front door.
“Wait a minute,” cried Vincent, running after him. “Where are you going?”
“To the telegraph office. I must wire this to the Club Batignolles at once.”
Summer came on in all its terrific, glaring heat. The country-side burst into a riot of colour. The greens and blues and yellows and reds were so stark they were shocking to the eye. Whatever the sun touched, it burnt to the core. The valley of the Rhône vibrated with wave after wave of billowy heat. The sun battered the two painters, bruised them, beat them to a living pulp, sucked out all their resistance. The mistral came up and lashed their bodies, whipped their nerves, shook their heads on their necks until they thought they would burst or break off. Yet every morning they went out with the sun and laboured until the crying blue of night deepened the crying blue of day.
Between Vincent and Gauguin, the one a perfect volcano, the other boiling inwardly, a fierce struggle was preparing itself. At night, when they were too exhausted to sleep, too nervous to sit still, they spent all their energy on each other. Their money ran low. They had no way to amuse themselves. They found an outlet for their pent up passions in mutual exacerbation. Gauguin never tired of whipping Vincent into a rage and, when Vincent was at the height of his paroxysm, throwing into his face, “Brigadier, your avez raison!”
“Vincent, no wonder you can’t paint. Look at the disorder of this studio. Look at the mess in this colour box. My God, if your Dutch brain wasn’t so fired with Daudet and Monticelli, maybe you could clean it out and get a little order into your life.”
“That’s nothing to you, Gauguin. This is my studio. You keep your studio any way you like.”
“While we’re on the subject, I may as well tell you that your mind is just as chaotic as your colour box. You admire every postage stamp painter in Europe, and yet you can’t see that Degas . . .”
“Degas! What has he ever painted that can be held up alongside of a Millet?”
“Millet! That sentimentalist! That . . .!”
Vincent worked himself into a frenzy at this slur at Millet, whom he considered his master and spiritual father. He stormed after Gauguin from room to room. Gauguin fled. The house was small. Vincent shouted at him, harangued him, waved his fists in Gauguin’s powerful face. Far into the tropical, oppressive night they kept up their bruising, battering conflict.
They both worked like fiends to catch themselves and nature at the point of fructification. Day after day they battled with their flaming palettes, night after night with each other’s strident egos. When they were not quarrelling viciously, their friendly arguments were so explosive that it was impossible to summon sleep. Money came from Theo. They spent it immediately for tobacco and absinthe. It was too hot to eat. They thought absinthe would quiet their nerves. It only excited them the more.