But in this way I’m counting on you sending on Saturday, for I’m awaiting it.

Yes, I too really regretted not being able to come back to Arles to take my leave of you all. For you well know that I had grown attached to people and things there with you with a sincere friendship. But in the final days I was more catching the illness of the others than curing my own, the society of the other patients influenced me badly, and in the end I no longer understood anything about it. Then I felt that it was better to try a change, and anyway the pleasure of seeing my brother, his family and our painter friends again has done me good up till now, and I feel absolutely calm and in a normal state. The doctor here says that one must throw oneself fully into work and distract oneself in that way.  1v:2

The latter knows a lot about painting, and likes mine very much, he encourages me a great deal, and two three times a week he comes to spend a few hours with me to see what I’m doing.

They have twice written an article about my paintings, once in a Paris newspaper and the other time in Brussels, where I had exhibited,1 and now, lately, again in a newspaper of my own country, Holland,2 and that means that a lot of people have been to see my paintings and that I’ve sold on better terms.3 And it isn’t over. It’s anyway certain that since I stopped drinking4 I’ve done better work than before, there’s still that which has been gained.

But I still often think of you all, one can’t do as one wants in life, one must leave the place one feels most attached to – but the memories remain and one remembers – obscurely as in a mirror5 – absent friends.

Thus I hope that the dispatch can take place on Saturday.  1v:3

Here is the address again.

Wishing you good health and complete recovery, most cordial greetings.