Hospital Ward 6, No. 9

24 June

My dear friend Rappard

This is to thank you for your last letter, which I would certainly have done earlier were it not for the fact I’ve not been my normal self for some time. I must tell you your letter reached me not at my studio but in the hospital, where I’ve been for 3 weeks now.1 So your letter was doubly welcome at the time, and what you say about the drawings that seem not to have pleased my worthy Uncle gave me double pleasure. Later, however, I heard from someone else that they weren’t so bad and that he hadn’t meant to be so critical. Whatever the case, while I was making those drawings and some more since, of the same sort of fish-drying barns in the dunes for instance,2 I caught a cold and then had fever and nerves as well, and it seems that one thing and another affected the bladder so that I couldn’t urinate, and in the end I was so anxious and in such pain that I came here. And they rummaged around in my bladder with a catheter and so forth, and now I’m beginning to return to a more normal condition, which pleases me a good deal. But I’m not clear of it yet, and still don’t know whether I’ll be able to go home soon. I hope it will be over within a week, but it will take some time in any event.  1v:2

Ever yours,

Vincent