1. This call had already been alluded to in letter 465.

2. Water mill at Gennep (F 125 / JH 525

); the work measures 87 x 151 cm. The mill is about 8 km from Nuenen (now South of Eindhoven). Probably in exchange for tobacco, Van Gogh gave his sketch of the water mill to Jansje van den Broek, who ran a tobacconist’s near Jan Baijens’s paint shop, where Van Gogh bought his paint (see De Telegraaf, 3 July 1969).

3. These two heads of polder workers are not known; several male heads have survived, Hulsker dates them to late 1884, early 1885.

4. These ‘3 people’ were the goldsmith Antoon Hermans, the tanner Anton Kerssemakers and the telegraph operator Willem van de Wakker. On 11 November Mr van Gogh told Theo: ‘Vincent is very hard at work and is being greatly encouraged by Gentlemen in Eindhoven’ (FR b2261).

Mrs van Gogh had already written to him on 27 October 1884: ‘Vincent ... also goes to Eindhoven often, still for that business for that Mr Hermans and then he has another acquaintance there who draws, but is actually a telegrapher; at bottom I think he’s still depressed though. Rappard is a quiet one but very hard-working ... I think Vincent would like to go out sometimes after Rappard’ (FR b2259).

5. Theo had been in Nuenen in August (letter 453).

6. The saying is ‘Il n’y a que le premier pas qui coûte’; it is attributed to Marie de Vichy-Chamrond, Marquise du Deffand, who is supposed to have said it to Cardinal Polignac in 1763 (John Bartlett, Familiar quotations. 10th ed. Boston 1919).

a. Read: ‘aan hen’ (to them).

7. Mrs van Gogh told Theo on 11 November: ‘Margot’s homecoming is approaching’ (FR b2262), but it was postponed. On 25 March 1885 she wrote: ‘Margot is coming home next week, may she be wise and may both of them find distraction in their work. She has been ill again and stretched her absence out as long as she could’ (FR b2268).

8. Louis Begemann.

9. During Theo’s visit there had been a serious clash about Vincent’s conduct: see letters 456 and 458.

10. Margot had three sisters: see letter 457, n. 2.