As the days went on he felt new, healthy energy arise. His love made him resolute. He had driven out the germ of doubt, and in his own mind he now knew that if he could only see Kay, help her to understand the sort of person he really was inside, he could change that “No, never, never” to “Yes! for ever, for ever!” He went back to his work with a new verve; although he knew that his draftsman’s fist was still unwieldy, he felt a powerful confidence that time would wipe that out, just as it would Kay’s refusal.

The following evening he sent a letter to the Reverend Stricker, stating his case clearly. He did not mince his words, and he grinned as he thought of the expletive that would be wrenched from his uncle’s lips. His father had forbidden him to write the letter; a real battle was preparing in the parsonage. Theodorus saw life in terms of strict obedience and strict behaviour; he knew nothing of the vicissitudes of human temperament. If his son could not fit himself to the mould, then it was his son who was wrong, and not the mould.

“It’s all the fault of those French books you read,” said Theodorus across the evening table. “If you keep company with thieves and murderers, how can anyone expect you to behave like an obedient son and a gentleman?”

Vincent looked up from his Michelet in mild astonishment.

“Thieves and murderers? Do you call Victor Hugo and Michelet thieves?”

“No, but that’s what they write about. Their books are full of evil.”

“Nonsense, Father; Michelet is as pure as the Bible itself.”

“I want none of your blaspheming here, young man!” shouted Theodorus in a righteous rage. “Those books are immoral. It’s your French ideas that have ruined you.”

Vincent rose, walked around the table, and placed “L’Amour et la Femme” before Theodorus.

“There is only one way for you to be convinced,” he said. “Just read a few pages for yourself. You will be impressed. Michelet only wants to help us solve our problems and our little miseries.”

Theodorus swept “L’Amour et la Femme” onto the floor with the gesture of a good man casting away sin.

“I don’t need to read it!” he fumed. “We have a great-uncle in the Van Gogh family who was infected with French ideas and he took to drink!”

“Mille pardons, Father Michelet,” murmured Vincent, picking up the book.

“And why Father Michelet, If I may ask?” said Theodorus icily. “Are you trying to insult me?”

“I hadn’t thought of any such thing,” said Vincent. “But I must tell you frankly that if I needed advice I would sooner go to Michelet than to you. It would be more likely to be in season.”

“Oh, Vincent,” implored his mother, “why must you say such things? Why must you break up family ties?”

“Yes, that’s what you’re doing,” exclaimed Theodorus. “You’re breaking up family ties. Your conduct is unpardonable. You had better leave this house and go elsewhere to live.”

Vincent walked up to his studio room and sat down on the bed. He wondered idly why it was that whenever he received a tremendous blow he sat on the bed instead of a chair. He looked around the walls of his room at the diggers, the sowers, the labourers, the seamstress and the cleaning girl, the wood-choppers and the drawings from Heike. Yes, he had made progress. He was going forward. But his work was not finished here yet. Mauve was in Drenthe and would not return for another month. He did not wish to leave Etten. He was comfortable; living elsewhere would be more expensive. He wanted time to crash through his clumsy expression and catch the true spirit of the Brabant types before he went away forever. His father had told him to leave the house, had actually cursed at him. But it had all been said in anger. If they really said “Go!” and meant it . . . Was he really so bad that he had to be driven from his father’s house?

The next morning he received two letters in the mail. The first was from the Reverend Stricker, an answer to his registered letter. There was also a note enclosed from the Reverend’s wife. They summed up Vincent’s career in no uncertain terms, told him that Kay loved someone else, that the other man was wealthy, that they wished his outlandish attacks upon their daughter to cease instantly.

“There are really no more unbelieving, hard hearted and worldly people alive than clergymen,” observed Vincent to himself, crushing the Amsterdam letter in his hand with as much savage pleasure as though it had been the Reverend himself.

The second letter was from Theo.

“The drawings are well expressed. I will do my utmost to sell them. In the meanwhile I am enclosing twenty francs for that trip to Amsterdam. Good luck, old boy.”

8

WHEN VINCENT LEFT the Central railway station, night was beginning to close in. He walked rapidly up the Damrak to the Dam, past the King’s Palace and the post office and cut across to the Keizersgracht. It was the hour when all the stores and offices were being emptied of their clerks and salesmen.