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841 To Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Monday, 20 January 1890.

metadata
No. 841 (Brieven 1990 843, Complete Letters W19)
From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Willemien van Gogh
Date: Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Monday, 20 January 1890

Source status
Original manuscript

Location
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. no. b719 V/1962

Date
Vincent must have written to Theo – in a letter that has not been preserved – about his visit to Arles on 18 or 19 January (see n. 1), as emerges from Theo’s letter 843 of 22 January. It is likely that the present letter to Willemien, who was staying with Theo and Jo, was enclosed with that one, and was thus written on the same day. We assume that Theo replied quickly (the first lines of his letter reveal how relieved he is that everything went so well), which means that the letter to Theo (no longer extant) and the present letter must have been written on 20 or 21 January 1890. Because letter 842 to the Ginouxs (in which Van Gogh referred to his visit) dates from 20 January, and Van Gogh had another attack, certainly no later than the 21st (see n. 1), 21 January is less likely as a date for the present letter. For these reasons we have dated it to 20 January 1890.

Additional
The letter was very likely enclosed with an unknown letter to Theo. See Date.

Ongoing topics
Willemien is staying with Theo and Jo (835)
Jo’s pregnancy (786)

original text
 1r:1
Ma chère soeur,
l’autre jour j’ai vu quelques malades de l’influenza et je suis si curieux de savoir si tu as eu cela aussi comme je suis porté à le croire. J’ai vu une malade chez qui il y avait une complication assez inquiétante, nerveuse, et retour d’âge pénible.1
Est ce que tu t’amuses à Paris? je pourrais très bien me figurer que cela te ferait l’impression d’une ville trop grande, trop embrouillée. Voilà ce qui nous contrarie toujours, nous autres qui sommes plutôt habituées à des entourages plus simples.
Ecris moi, si tu en as envie, de ces jours ci car je suis fort desireux de t’entendre dire que tu sois remise.
Je redoute un peu l’effet que fera sur moi Paris en cas que j’y retourne comme sera probablement le cas au printemps. Car toute l’année durant je me suis efforcé d’oublier Paris tant que je le pouvais au point de vue du trouble et de l’exitement que cause un séjour prolongé.
On a beau dire; pour les peintres on travaille mieux à la campagne, tout y parle plus nettement, tout s’y tient, tout s’y explique, or dans une grande ville lorsqu’on est fatigué on ne comprend plus rien et se sent comme perdu.
 1v:2
J’espère que le tableau des femmes dans les oliviers2 sera un peu selon ton gout – j’en ai envoyé le dessin à Gauguin de ces jours ci et celui là m’a dit qu’il le trouvait bien3 et lui connait bien mon travail et ne se gène pas non plus pour le dire lorsque cela n’y est pas. Tu serais naturellement bien libre d’en prendre un autre si tu le desirerais à la place mais à la longue j’ose presque croire que tu reviendrais à celui ci. Il ne fait pas froid du tout ici de ces jours ci et le mois prochain j’irai travailler dehors de toutes mes forces. Ah parlant de la différence entre la grande ville et les champs. quel maitre que Millet. Celui-là si sage, si ému,4 fait la campagne de telle façon que même en ville on continue à la sentir. Et puis il a quelque chôse d’unique et de si bon jusqu’au fond que cela console de regarder ses oeuvres et on se demande si c’est exprès qu’il les ait ainsi faites pour nous consoler.5 A présent, mieux que dans le commencement, je vois la vraie campagne de Provence – et c’est tellement  1v:3 tellement la même chose que chez nous dans les gens, alors que cela se manifeste tout autrement, alors que la culture et les travaux des champs sont pas les mêmes que dans nos bruyeres et champs du nord. Je pense beaucoup à la Hollande et à notre jeunesse d’autrefois – précisement parceque ici je me sens bien en pleine campagne. Pourtant je me fais vieux tu sais et la vie me parait passer plus vite, et plus sérieuses les responsabilités, plus critique la question de travailler pour rattrapper le temps perdu, la journée plus difficile à faire et l’avenir plus mystérieux et ma foi encore un peu plus sombre.
De ces jours ci j’espère écrire un mot à la mère aussi, nous te devons beaucoup nous tous à toi qui la soigne si fidèlement et nous la conserveras le plus longtemps possible.
Je me figure que Theo va probablement être très heureux de ces jours ci, seulement je m’en fais bien quelque peu une idée que les jours de veille auparavant et pendant ont leurs grosses angoisses. Lesquelles d’ailleurs je ne suis pas tout à fait sans partager. Et Jo à ce qu’il m’écrit est si courageuse et si réveillée. Allons c’est comme ça d’ailleurs qu’il faudrait toujours prendre les chôses. J’aime tant l’ami Gauguin parcequ’il a trouvé moyen de faire à la fois et des enfants et des tableaux, à présent il se trouve horriblement en peine et a cette inquietude qu’un des enfants a eu un malheur6 et lui pas là et pas en état de venir au secours.
 1r:4
as tu rencontré Emile Bernard maintenant – je voudrais bien qu’il vienne un peu voir mes toiles de ces jours ci,7 je dois lui écrire mais justement j’attends un peu tous les jours une lettre de lui. Il doit avoir beaucoup de mal à se débrouiller, il est tout à fait Parisien né, celui là, et il est pour moi un exemple de vivacité, il a un air de tête tout à fait à la Daudet mais alors bien plus vert et naturellement bien plus incomplet.
Pourtant ma chère soeur, combien les medecins, les mécaniciens, enfin un tas de gens ont des idées plus pratiques, plus solides que les artistes. A moi il me vient souvent un profond soupir d’avoir dû être meilleur que je ne le suis. Je me tais vite pour que je ne me decourage pas.– Enfin, on ne peut pas revenir sur ses pas et les pas qu’on a fait y sont pour beaucoup pour influencer l’avenir. j’espère que tu verras beaucoup de belles chôses et surtout que tu sois bien portante maintenant.
As tu lu de ces jours ci ou de ces derniers temps; moi pas du tout.
Si tu as une demi heure de loisir je me recommande beaucoup pour avoir de tes nouvelles. En pensée je t’embrasse bien.

t. à t.
Vincent

Dis moi surtout ce que tu penses d’Isaacson, je pense moi beaucoup de bien de lui et te le recommande bien.8

translation
 1r:1
My dear sister,
The other day I saw some people sick with influenza and I’m so curious to know if you’ve had it too, as I’m inclined to believe. I saw a female patient who had a rather worrying nervous complication, and a distressing change of life.1
Are you enjoying yourself in Paris? I could very well imagine that it would strike you as being an over-large city, too muddled. That’s what always vexes us, we who are rather accustomed to simpler surroundings.
Write to me one of these days if you’d like to, for I very much want to hear you say that you’re better.
I fear a little the effect that Paris will have on me should I return there, as will probably be the case in the spring. For all through the year I’ve forced myself to forget Paris as much as I could from the point of view of the disturbance and excitement a prolonged stay causes.
No matter what people say; we painters work better in the country, everything there speaks more clearly, everything holds firm, everything explains itself, now in a city when one is tired one no longer understands anything and feels as if one is lost.  1v:2
I hope that the painting of the women in the olive trees2 will be a little to your taste – I sent the drawing of it to Gauguin just recently and he told me that he thought it good,3 and he knows my work well, and he isn’t embarrassed to say so when it isn’t right. You would naturally be quite free to take another of them in its place if you wished, but in the long run I almost dare believe that you’d return to this one. It hasn’t been at all cold here lately, and next month I’ll go and work outdoors with all my strength. Ah, speaking of the difference between the city and the fields, what a master Millet is. That fellow, so wise, so moved,4 does the countryside in such a way that even in town one continues to feel it. And then he has something unique and so good right down to his depths that it consoles one to look at his works, and one wonders if he did them this way expressly to console us.5 Now, better than in the beginning, I see the real countryside of Provence – and as regards people it’s so very  1v:3 very much the same thing as in our native country, while it manifests itself quite differently, while the farming practices and labours of the fields aren’t the same as in our northern heaths and fields. I think a lot about Holland and about our youth back then – precisely because here I feel right in the middle of the countryside. However I’m getting old, you know, and it seems to me that life passes more quickly and the responsibilities are more serious, the question of working to make up for lost time more critical, the day more difficult to do and the future more mysterious, and my word a little more gloomy too.
One of these days I also hope to write a line to Mother, we all owe a great deal to you, to you who care for her so faithfully and will keep her for us for as long as possible.
I imagine that Theo is probably going to be very happy one of these days, only I do have something of an idea that the days of vigil before and during have their great anxieties. Which, moreover, I cannot completely refrain from sharing. And from what he writes to me, Jo is so brave and so lively. Anyway, that is moreover how one should always take things. I like friend Gauguin so much because he has found the means to make both children and paintings at the same time, at the moment he’s horribly in distress and has this worry that one of his children has had a misfortune6 and he not there and in no condition to come to its aid.  1r:4
Have you met Emile Bernard now – I’d very much like him to come and see some of my canvases one of these days,7 I ought to write to him, but just now I’m expecting a letter from him at any moment. He must have a lot of difficulty getting by, he’s a complete Parisian by birth, that one, and he’s an example of vivacity for me, he looks as if he comes straight out of Daudet, but then much more immature, and naturally much more incomplete.
However my dear sister, how much more practical and solid are the ideas of doctors, mechanics, in fact of heaps of people, than those of artists. I myself often sigh deeply that I should have been better than I am. I’ll shut up quickly so as not to discourage myself. Anyway, one can’t retrace one’s steps, and the steps one has taken have a lot of influence on the future. I hope that you’ll see lots of beautiful things, and above all that you’re well now.
Have you read anything these last few days or lately: I haven’t at all.
If you have a spare half hour I recommend myself heartily to have news from you. I kiss you affectionately in thought.

Ever yours,
Vincent

Above all, tell me what you think of Isaäcson, myself I think very highly of him, and heartily recommend him to you.8
notes
1. It is apparent from letter 850 that this patient was Madame Ginoux and that Van Gogh had visited her in Arles, where he must have gone on 18 or 19 January, since he was back in Saint-Rémy on 20 January (on which day he wrote letter 842 to the Ginouxs). Two days after the trip to Arles he had another attack, as Dr Peyron informed Theo (see Hulsker 1971, p. 41).
2. Women picking olives (F 655 / JH 1869 ).
3. This drawing is not known; Gauguin mentioned it in letter 840.
4. This echoes something Sensier wrote: ‘Millet, a man moved, but always wise’. See Sensier 1881, p. 176.
5. In connection with this consolation, compare the closing words of Sensier’s preface to La vie et l’oeuvre de J.-F- Millet: ‘That’s a painter who gives life to humble people, a poet who extols examples of unknown greatness, a man of good will who encourages and consoles’. Later on in the book, Sensier confessed: ‘When life brought me worries, I would go and look at Millet’s painting, and I would come away rested and consoled’. (Il y a là un peintre qui donne la vie aux humbles, un poète qui exalte les grandeurs ignorées, un homme de bien qui encourage et console’. Sensier schreef ook: ‘Quand la vie m’apportait des inquiétudes, j’allais voir la peinture de Millet, et je sortais reposé et consolé’. See Sensier 1881, pp. xi, 102.
6. Gauguin’s son Jean-René had fallen out of a window in Copenhagen; see letter 840.
7. Although their correspondence had come to a halt, Bernard still appeared to be interested in Van Gogh’s work. On 8 February 1890 he told Theo: ‘I want to see Vincent’s canvases’ (FR b1153). Cf. also letter 858.
8. It seems as if Van Gogh was trying to pair off his sister and Isaäcson, whom he thought a suitable husband for her (see letter 815). Perhaps he thought the same about Bernard, as suggested both by his remark earlier in this letter and by his detailed description of him in letter 827 to Willemien.