1. To his surprise, Van Gogh was not to be hospitalized (see letter 245).

2. What is meant is ‘off-white’.

3. In Zola’s novel Une page d’amour (1878) the widow Hélène Mouret lives in Passy with her nervous daughter Jeanne. Doctor Deberle looks after the little girl and Hélène’s gratitude develops into a ‘page d’amour’ (love affair). The girl becomes jealous, however, because she cannot share her mother with another – when later on she dies (of galloping consumption), the love between Hélène and the doctor comes to an end. She blames him for her daughter’s death and a few months later she marries a friend. This does not prevent her from being tormented by remorse over her actions. The novel contains various descriptions of arcades, gardens and streets in Paris.

4. Van Gogh evidently gave this title to an – unknown – drawing that had its origins in Zola’s ‘Ce que je veux’ (What I want) of 1859. This romantic poem 40 lines long is about the desire for a queen with fair hair (‘une reine aux blonds cheveux’); the lover wants to dwell in sweet nature with this ‘Reine d’amour’. Van Gogh may have known the poem through a publication in La Vie Moderne 3 (29 January 1881), pp. 68-69, where it was included and illustrated by Félix Régamey. Ill. 1930 . See also Zola 1966-1970, vol. 5, pp. 868-869.

5. Several chapters of Zola’s Comment on meurt appeared in Le Figaro as a prepublication. La mort du paysan (chapter 5) was published on 20 June 1881 and was a great success; a year later it was translated into Dutch as ‘De Dood van de boer’ and appeared in De Amsterdammer (11 June 1882, p. 5). Van Gogh no doubt particularly appreciated the descriptions of the taciturn, seventy-year-old peasant Jean-Louis Lacour: he is ‘tall and gnarled like an oak. The sun has burned and furrowed him and given him the colour, the hardness and the calm of the trees.’ Van Gogh may also have been reminded of Millet when Zola writes: ‘[Lacour] looks at the ground and his body is bent in the pose in which he works.’ It is not known whether Van Gogh read the story in French or in Dutch. See Zola 1976, pp. 621-627, 1484-1485, and cf. Sund 1992, p. 53. In letter 359 he again refers to this story.

6. At that time Van Gogh had been discussing his plans to marry Kee Vos with his parents.

7. On the ‘Geel affair’, see letter 185.

8. For this ‘shadow’, see letter 242.

9. For this confrontation in Amsterdam, see letter 193.

10. This quotation derives from Sensier: ‘On two occasions, I was able to believe that this thought of suicide had haunted Millet’s mind: “Suicide is for dishonest men,” I once heard him say, as if replying to himself... “And, afterwards?... and his wife and children?.. A fine legacy!” And Millet looked at me.’ (Par deux fois, j’ai pu croire que cette pensée de suicide avait hanté l’esprit de Millet: “Le suicide est d’un malhonnête homme, lui ai-je entendu dire alors, comme s’il se répondait à lui-même... Et, après?... et la femme et les enfants?.. Belle succession!” Et Millet me regardait.) See Sensier 1881, p. 183.

11. In March 1877 Theo had fallen in love with a woman who already had a child; see letter 103.

12. An allusion to Mauve’s dictum: ‘The factory is in full swing’; see letter 172.

13. For the expression ‘How (not) to do it’, which Van Gogh borrowed from Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit, see letter 179, n. 3.