1. Vincent mentions this location several times. See letter 11, n. 15.

2. For the – supposed – disappearance of this mill, see letter 248, n. 7.

3. For this crossed letter, see letter 249.

4. See letter 248, n. 3.

5. Fish-drying barn (F 940 / JH 154 ) and Carpenter’s yard and laundry (F 944 / JH 153 ); see letter 235.

6. This description matches Rooftops (F 943 / JH 156 ).

7. See letter 219 of on or about 21 April 1882.

8. The novel Le ventre de Paris (1873) by Emile Zola.

9. The heroine of Zola’s novel Nana (1880) escapes from the wretched conditions in which her parents live and becomes one of the leading courtesans in the ‘demi-monde’ during the Second Empire. Nana sets out to avenge the injustice inflicted on her class and leaves a trail of distress, bankruptcies and humiliation.

10. Van Gogh’s opinion was widely shared. Critics also referred to Zola at that time as the new Balzac. The publisher Charpentier introduced him to his friends with ‘Come and meet the new Balzac’. See F.W.J. Hemmings, The life and times of Emile Zola. London 1977, p. 68.

11. Sedan is a city in northern France. Van Gogh uses the name as a metonym for the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, in which the French were defeated. Napoleon iii lost the Battle of Sedan on 1 September 1870, and this heralded the final defeat.

12. The character Mme François is a vegetable seller at the market of Nanterre. At the beginning of Zola’s Le ventre de Paris she is riding with her merchandise to Paris early in the morning, when she sees Florent lying on the road exhausted and unconscious (chapter 1). ‘You don’t run over people’ (On n’écrase pas le monde) she says, and puts him on her cart. This provokes reactions from bystanders: ‘if you had to pick up drunks!... You don’t give up easily, do you, mother!’ (s’il fallait ramasser les ivrognes!... Vous avez de la constance, vous, la mère!) Her humanity is emphasized more than once in the novel, as when she takes pity on a lonely old woman. See Zola 1960-1967, vol. 1, pp. 604-605, 613.

13. There were four versions of Sorrow; see letters 216 and 222.

14. The poor district around Keizerstraat, where the fishing community lived. The emphasis on ‘old’ is due to the fact that at that time Scheveningen was increasingly turning into a fashionable seaside resort. See exhib. cat. The Hague 1990, pp. 61-62. Compare also Van Gogh’s criticism of this development in letter 369.

a. Means: ‘doorgaans’ (usually).

15. There are so many charcoal drawings by De Bock that match this description that it is impossible to establish which ones Van Gogh saw.

16. A reference to Tersteeg’s comment noted in letter 247.

17. Rooftops ; see n. 6 above.

18. For this episode, see letter 219.

19. Van Gogh first wrote openly about his relationship with Sien in letter 224, on the basis of which the misunderstanding supposed here was indeed possible. He had written earlier about the ‘model’ who had a child, but Theo did not know then that this was Sien (cf. letters 200 and 207 for example).

20. For this nursing in the Borinage, see letter 151.

21. Cf. Mark 12:33.