“You intend to write, yourself?”

“Can you ask that? Of course I will. But you must admit that now is a very untimely moment. Father is being moved to the vicarage at Neunen. My wife’s condition is such that any anxiety or strain now would be murder.”

“Then of course I shan’t write. My boy, you’re as foolish as the man who wants to drown himself. I only want to save you from it.”

“I don’t doubt your good intentions, Mijnheer Tersteeg, and that is why I try not to be angry at your words. But this conversation is very disagreeable to me.”

Tersteeg went away, a baffled look on his face. It was Weissenbruch who delivered the first real blow from the outside world. He drifted in nonchalantly one afternoon to see if Vincent was still alive.

“Hello,” he said. “I notice you managed to get along without that twenty-five francs.”

“Yes.”

“Now aren’t you glad I didn’t coddle you?”

“I believe about the first thing I said to you, that night at Mauve’s, was ‘Go to hell!’ I repeat my invitation.”

“If you keep this up, you’ll become another Weissenbruch; you’ve got the making of a real man in you. Why don’t you introduce me to your mistress. I’ve never had the honour.”

“Bait me all you like, Weissenbruch, but leave her alone.”

Christine was rocking the iron cradle with its green cover. She knew that she was being ridiculed, and looked up at Vincent with pain in her face. Vincent crossed to the mother and child and stood by their side, protectively. Weissenbruch glanced at the group, then at the Rembrandt over the cradle.

“I say,” he exclaimed, “you make a corking motif. I’d like to do you. I’d call it Holy Family!”

Vincent sprang after Weissenbruch with an oath, but the latter got out the door safely. Vincent went back to his family. There was a bit of mirror hung on the wall beside the Rembrandt. Vincent glanced up, caught the reflection of the three of them and in one horrible, devastating instant of clarity saw through the eyes of Weissenbruch . . . the bastard, the whore, and the charity monger.

“What did he call us?” asked Christine.

“The Holy Family.”

“What’s that?”

“A picture of Mary, Jesus, and Joseph.”

Tears sprang to her eyes and she buried her head in the baby’s clothes. Vincent went on his knees beside the iron cradle to comfort her. Dusk was creeping in the north window and threw a quiet shadow over the room. Once again Vincent was able to detach himself and see the three of them, just as though he were not a member of the group. This time he saw through the eyes of his own heart.

“Don’t cry, Sien,” he said. “Don’t cry, darling. Lift up your head and dry your tears. Weissenbruch was right!”

11

VINCENT DISCOVERED SCHEVENINGEN and oil painting at about the same time. Scheveningen was a little fishing village lying in a valley of two protective sand dunes on the North Sea. On the beach there were rows of square fishing barks with one mast and deep-coloured, weather beaten sails. They had rude, square rudders behind, fishing nets spread out ready for the sea, and a tiny rust-red or sea-blue triangular flag aloft. There were blue wagons on red wheels to carry the fish to the village; fisherwives in white oilskin caps fastened at the front by two round gold pins; family crowds at the tide’s edge to welcome the barks; the Kurzaal flying its gay flags, a pleasure house for foreigners who liked the taste of salt on their lips, but not choked down their throats. The sea was grey with whitecaps at the shore and ever deepening hues of green fading into a dull blue; the sky was a cleaning grey with patterned clouds and an occasional design of blue to suggest to the fishermen that a sun still shines over Holland. Scheveningen was a place where men worked, and where the people were indigenous to the soil and the sea.

Vincent had been doing a good many street scenes in water-colour and he found that medium satisfactory for a quick impression. But water-colour did not have the depth, the thickness, the character to express the things he needed to say. He yearned for oil, but he was afraid to tackle it because he had heard of so many painters being ruined by going to oil before they learned to draw. Then Theo came to The Hague.