1. Possibly Petrus Johannes Idenburg (see letter 456, n. 9).

2. Margot’s mother was Amalia Polixena Rosina Schröter.

3. Originally Van Gogh wrote ‘persoontje’ (little person).

4. Cf. the following recollection of Sientje Begemann, daughter of Margot’s brother Louis: ‘Aunt Go was an uneducated woman but she had a perceptive mind and a good heart. She was a very social being and was the nurse doctor of Nuenen.’ Handwritten note by H. Nauta in Van Gogh Museum, Documentation (FR b7117).

5. Wood gatherers in the snow (F 43 / JH 516 ).

a. Means: ‘ondertussen’ (meanwhile).

b. This form of the word must have been derived from the French ‘bitumeux’ (of the nature of or resembling tar). Also in letter 537.

6. Van Gogh had quoted this before (without the word ‘energetic’ (énergique)); that time he attributed it to Jules Breton. See letter 193, n. 26.

7. The evening in August when Theo was in Nuenen: see letter 455.

8. This will in any event have included Margot’s sisters Lutgera Wilhelmina, Wilhelmina Johanna and Amalia Polixena Rosina, and her sister-in-law Maria Suzanna Lelyvelt.

9. The Italian city of Cremona is known for its famous violin makers, among them Antonio Stradivari.

10. This may have been the small Portrait photograph of Kee Vos-Stricker with her son Jan, c. 1882. Ill. 2125 . (FR b4888-I). Van Gogh had fallen in love with her in the summer of 1881. See letters 179 ff.

11. In Emile Zola’s novel Au bonheur des dames (1883) the character of Octave Mouret, talking about the persistence you must bring to bear when you absolutely must have someone you love, asserts: ‘If you believe yourself strong, because you refuse to be foolish and to suffer! You are nothing but a dupe, no more!’ See Zola 1960-1967, vol. 3, chapter 11, pp. 696-697. Van Gogh included this sentence in a longer passage in letter 464.