1. Men digging (F - / JH 132). Some of the figures in this enclosed sketch, including the three little women in the top right corner, recur in part in the drawing Torn-up Noordstraat with diggers (F 930a / JH 131 ). On the verso of the sketch is Head of a man (F - / JH 133).

2. The ‘Geest’ is the name of a working-class district in The Hague. The location drawn is Noordstraat 13-15, where workers were in the process of laying sewerage pipes. See exhib. cat. The Hague 1990, pp. 48-49.

3. For a definition of ‘iets op heterdaad vatten’ (to capture something first-hand, see the term ‘snappen’ (seize, capture, commit to paper) in letter 218, n. 6.

a. After ‘earn’ Van Gogh repeated the French equivalent ‘(c.à.d. gagner)’ (‘(i.e. earn)’).

4. For the expression ‘How (not) to do it’, see letter 179, n. 3.

5. On 2 April 1882 Mr van Gogh was called to the ministry at Nuenen, a village in North Brabant, where he went to take up a position as minister of the Dutch Reformed congregation. He officially accepted the position on 7 June and was inducted on 13 August 1882. On 23 April he announced his departure to the congregation in Etten. See De Brouwer 1984, p. 13 and exhib. cat. ’s-Hertogenbosch 1987, p. 84.