1. Louis Begemann.

a. Means: ‘Godsdienstwaanzin’ (religious mania).

b. Read: ‘Om iemand’ (for bringing someone).

2. The unmarried sisters who lived with Margot Begemann in the house called ‘Nune Ville’ at no. 24 Berg – the house next door to the Van Goghs’ parsonage – were Lutgera Wilhelmina, Wilhelmina Johanna and Amalia Polixena Rosina Begemann.

3. Louis Begemann was married to Maria Suzanna Lelyvelt.

c. Means: ‘doe dan maar net of je van niets weet’ (just pretend you know nothing).

4. See for the ‘first Madame Bovary’ in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. Moeurs de province: letter 456, n. 7. By ‘the second’ Van Gogh means Emma Bovary, the protagonist of the novel. She was Charles Bovary’s second wife. Emma finds no satisfaction in her dull, stifling marriage and embarks on intimate relationships, firstly with Rodolphe, later with Léon, but these only provide short-lived solutions. Dream and reality are irreconcilable. Eventually Emma gets into debt, sees her life as hopeless and commits suicide by taking arsenic.

5. Margot Begemann was 43.