The Last Van Gogh Read online

“Marguerite? Again? You wish to paint Marguerite again?” Father was visibly perplexed. “Why, if you wish to paint another portrait after mine, Vincent, why don’t you paint Paul’s? He will be done with his exams in only a few short weeks.”

  Paul had been standing there the whole time almost motionless. After Vincent had seemed irritated by his comments about the painting of me, Paul had not uttered a word. Now, suddenly everyone went quiet waiting for Vincent’s response.

  “Out of no disrespect to you, Doctor, I hope you will allow me to pick who I wish to paint.”

  Father suddenly turned red, clearly embarrassed not only by his error, but also for his young son, who now seemed more pained than ever.

  At that moment I too felt quite badly for my brother. I knew Father had embarrassed him with his presumptuous request, but even more humiliating was Vincent’s obvious lack of interest in painting him.

  But there was also something in me that felt strangely gratified to be the recipient of Vincent’s attention. Paul had had years of coddling from Madame Chevalier, while she had treated me with complete disregard. And Papa’s affection had always leaned toward my brother, especially now that he was trying to cultivate a certain artistic talent. So Vincent’s kindness toward me was something that I relished, even if it did appear to upset Paul.

  “Will you be needing anything else this evening?” Father was the one to finally break the awkward silence.

  “I just want to thank you for allowing me to paint your daughter. It has been such a pleasure to be able to get back to my work and finally be inspired again.”

  I could feel Vincent’s eyes stealing a glance at me.

  I wondered if Father noticed, too, as minutes later, he motioned for Paul and me to go inside. “Children, if you’ll excuse Vincent and me for a moment, I need to speak to him in private.”

  “Of course, Papa,” I said demurely. I curtsied in Vincent’s direction and said good-bye. Paul followed awkwardly behind.

  Upon reaching the house, I turned to close the door behind us, but as I did, I noticed Papa reaching into his breast pocket and retrieving a glass vial. He pressed the flask into Vincent’s hand. I saw Vincent shake his head and try to push the vial back into Father’s hand, the two of them going back and forth like that for several seconds. Eventually, Vincent acquiesced. He placed the vial in his breast pocket and then he and Father walked down the garden stairs.

  FOURTEEN

  Foxgloves

  IT always amazed me how, despite the lovely weather we had in spring and summer in Auvers, the first floor of our house always seemed dark. The heavy wool drapes allowed little light to penetrate the rooms. The bric-a-brac of Father’s keepsakes—his brass compasses, his antique stethoscopes, the left-behind figures that Cézanne had used in a still life—littered the shelves. There were canvases painted by Pissarro. One of chestnut trees poking through the fog, another of a ferry gliding through pewter waters. Crowded next to them were studies by Cézanne—a table full of apples and pears, a vase overflowing with white dahlias—and a painting of the houses on our street, the terra-cotta rooflines set against a blue-white sky. Father had hung these canvases so closely together that the room resembled the basement of the Louvre.

  When sitting in our parlor, I always felt my lungs struggling to breathe. But Father’s gloom was often more stifling than the clutter. There were times when no one from our household—including Madame Chevalier—could rouse him from his despair.

  “I need my solitude! Can’t a man have any peace?” he would holler at Paul or me if we disturbed him. He would sit for hours in the same parlor chair with the lamps unlit, a book half-opened on his lap, and his face turned away.

  In the months before Vincent arrived, Father’s bouts of depression appeared more frequently. If Father was truly as depressed as he appeared, his self-medication was obviously not working, and I could not help but wonder how Father could treat patients if he failed to successfully treat himself.

  Sometimes his tinctures did prove effective and he would rebound with tremendous energy. He’d be so ebullient that neither Paul nor I nor even Madame Chevalier could match his desire for constant activity. But other times the medicine had the opposite effect: he would appear more agitated and nervous after taking his self-prescribed medicine. On more than one occasion, I caught him trying to control his shaking hands.

  I noticed that, in the few weeks since Vincent’s arrival, Papa had been making his foxglove tincture more regularly. I was not sure if he was making the herbal remedy for himself or for Vincent. But due to the volume of his production, I suspected it was for them both.

  He would get up early in the morning and get out his jar of powdered leaves, his bottle of chloroform water, his solution of sodium carbonate. I would wander downstairs and find him at my worktable, shaking the solution under the haze of a kerosene lamp before eventually passing the liquid through a flannel sleeve.

  The foxglove always made him temporarily energetic. He would have bouts of productivity, when he would feel the need to rearrange his library or organize his collection of prints with an almost maniacal frenzy. I suspected he had given himself another dosage the night after Vincent painted me.

  I had made a small quiche, with tiny roasted potatoes and haricots verts. It was not unusual that Father failed to compliment the meal. He rarely did, and I did not expect this time to be any different. What was different was how he continued to stare at me throughout the course of the dinner.

  I noticed he lifted his eyes from his plate every few seconds. But he squinted as if scrutinizing me. I knew he was straining to see why Vincent had been so intent on painting me.

  I kept my eyes firmly on the table and gave him no reason to find annoyance with me. Yet when the time came for me to clear the plates, he looked at me again, this time saying in a clear, sharp voice: “Have you heard, Marguerite? Vincent has promised to paint me, too.”

  I nodded to him and told him how pleased I was to hear such good news.

  “He will do a portrait of me.”

  “Such an honor, Papa.”

  Madame Chevalier clasped her hands. “How wonderful, Paul-Ferdinand!” I could see her foot tapping against her daughter’s leg underneath the tablecloth, prompting Louise-Josephine to applaud Father’s good news.

  “Yes, congratulations,” Louise-Josephine said to Papa. She turned her head in his direction and lifted her eyes demurely to his. “Maman is right, it is quite an honor.” She nodded her head to him and smiled before lifting her napkin to her lips, blotting them daintily before returning to her meal.

  Papa nodded his head to Louise-Josephine and smiled back at her. He looked quite pleased with the respect that Louise-Josephine showed him.

  “When does Vincent intend to come?” Madame Chevalier asked.

  “He wants to start tomorrow. Last night when I walked him home he asked me to sit a few moments at the inn. He came downstairs and within a few minutes produced a brilliant etching of me on a tiny scrap of metal!”

  “And again he wants to come tomorrow?” Madame Chevalier clucked her tongue. “He can’t wait to paint you!”

  She poured more wine into Father’s glass. The black cloth of her sleeve dangled close to the rim. I could smell her toilet water—as her hand reached across to Papa—a combination of roses and clove. It was far too strong.

  “He certainly is prolific,” Papa continued. “He’s been here two weeks and already several canvases completed!”

  I saw Paul twist his mouth in a sour expression. “Doesn’t seem quite normal to me,” he said underneath his breath.

  “One can never understand the artist’s mind completely.” Father looked squarely at him. He had obviously heard what Paul had muttered. “It is not for us to judge…. Anyway, I’ve just given him a dose of digitalis and that should help prevent any epileptic fits.”

  “Epilepsy?” I gasped. It was the first time Father had mentioned it and I couldn’t hide my alarm. But the remark about the digit
alis confirmed that he was giving the foxglove to Vincent as well. After all, I knew he made the medicine from the plant.

  “Yes,” Father said gravely. “He had several bad bouts of it back in Arles. Though it might have been a lingering effect of his absinthe addiction.” Papa sighed. “Regardless, I promised his brother I’d tinker with a little preemptive medicine. A little digitalis will help soothe his nerves…even I take it now and then.”

  He took another swallow of wine.

  “I’m just relieved he seems to be so contented here. And now with another portrait in the works…of me, no less…he seems to be well on his way to complete recovery. I’ll have to take a little credit for that!” He placed his glass down and winked at Madame Chevalier.

  Father’s boasting unnerved me. I stood up and began to clear the dishes. I had only made my first steps into the kitchen when I heard Louise-Josephine’s footsteps behind me.

  “You should be careful,” she said. “Your father’s possessive of Vincent. He suspects he’s attracted to you.” She was standing unusually close to me and her eyes seemed to reveal wisdom of someone far beyond her years.

  I looked at her incredulously. “Why do you say that?”

  “It’s human nature.” She tidied up the cutting board, brushing up the crumbs.

  I wanted to ask her what she meant, but she answered me before I could.

  “Your papa will make it difficult for any man to love you. He doesn’t want you to ever leave this house. He relies on you more and more, and it will only get worse.”

  A few months ago, I would have been furious that she had the audacity to speak to me that way. But now I knew better. While our conversations were still infrequent, I now listened to her carefully. I was beginning to realize that when Louise-Josephine spoke, what she said usually ended up being right.

  FIFTEEN

  Stealing into the Night

  MY heart nearly stopped beating the evening I caught Louise-Josephine crawling out her window.

  I had been in my room reading when I heard the sound of a window opening, then the crack of footsteps teetering on the ledge. I put my novel down and listened again. There was a rustle in the trees, yet it wasn’t the sound the wind makes as it passes through branches, nor the sound laundry makes as it flutters on the line. If anything, it sounded like a small animal scampering to the ground.

  I stood up and looked out the glass. There in the dark, I saw Louise-Josephine, clad in nothing but a housedress, crawling down the trellis of our front garden.

  The white linen of her gown was whipping at her heels as she undid the latch of the gate. Her chestnut hair was undone and thewind blew it upward, exposing the nape of her neck, the cleft between shoulder blades. She was slighter than I and not as tall either, which made her appear much younger than her twenty-three years.

  I remember she cast her eyes up toward the window of her bedroom before she slipped away. She did not turn around after that. She ran down the rue Vessenots, the white of her dress flashing like lightning against the sky.

  I stood there gazing at her from my window, my breath forming clouds of steam over the pane. For a moment, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Had Louise-Josephine really just escaped from her bedroom window and stolen off in the middle of the night?

  I knew that she was not running away. She would not have left for good in such informal dress. She would have thrown on an overcoat and packed a bag if she were truly leaving us.

  Suddenly, I was seized by the possibility that she had found someone in the village. I imagined her falling into his arms, his hands running down the back of her linen gown, her hair let loose like the sinewy fingers of seaweed. I wondered who he could be and where she could have met him. Hadn’t her movements, her interactions with the villagers, been limited as mine and Paul’s had? I was incredulous that she could have even had the opportunity to meet someone. Did she, a girl only two years older than me, already have a lover, when I had not even had my first kiss?

  I found myself in her room that evening searching for clues. I had been inside her bedroom on very few occasions, never looking at anything too closely or staying for more than a moment. But as I now stood in her quarters, I noticed how, in contrast to my sparse room, she had littered hers with several collections she had accumulated over the years and had managed to decorate it in a unique style that was all her own.

  I walked over to the simple pine chest where her toilette accessories lay. There was a small tortoise comb, a wooden brush, and a needle cushion. All of these objects were rather unremarkable, but next to them rested a small, beautiful box that Louise-Josephine had made in découpage. She had cut out small pictures of butterflies from old magazines, and applied them to the little case, varnishing them over with shellac.

  On closer inspection, her room was full of curious things. There was an old rabbit with only one glass eye; a small ceramic turtle with a moonstone on its back. Then there was a small photograph of her mother on her nightstand. Its frame had originally been a simple wooden one, but Louise had glued several small glass marbles around its perimeter so that it now looked like it was bejeweled in aquamarine and amethyst stones.

  I was overwhelmed by her obvious creativity. Despite her lack of schooling, she had managed to be far more inventive than either Paul or me.

  I sat down on her bed and stretched my limbs. I felt the stitched pattern of the coverlet beneath my nightdress and the moonlight on my naked toes. I could hear Madame Chevalier’s breathing coming from the adjacent room and marveled at either Louise’s good fortune or her cleverness in choosing a night in which her mother wasn’t shuttling off to Father’s room.

  I walked over to the window and noticed that Louise-Josephine had kept the pane slightly ajar. There was no rope, no ladder. Nothing except for the trellising that flanked the stucco façade of our house. How would she manage to return? Would she climb up the trellis or would she walk in through the front door?

  Up until this evening, I had thought I was the only young girl in our household with a secret love. But now, I realized I was far from alone. Father, Madame Chevalier, and now Louise-Josephine all had theirs.

  The irony was not lost on me. Our household, which took great lengths to maintain an appearance of bourgeois correctness, was in actuality teeming with clandestine love affairs and scandal. I cast my eyes around Louise-Josephine’s room, pondered her empty bed, and felt as though I had just watched a party boat depart on the water while I had been left to remain alone on the dock.

  It was at that moment I came to a decision. If I wanted Vincent to think of me as more than an acquaintance, I’d have to take my cue from the other women in my household. I had no choice, I would have to learn how to be more bold.

  SIXTEEN

  A Handful of Fireflies

  LOUISE-JOSEPHINE returned at half past five, walking up the flight of stairs with velvetlike steps. I was barely awake when I heard her turn the doorknob to her room, and I had to rush to make it look like I hadn’t been sleeping in her bed.

  When she walked in and found me sitting on her bedspread, she nearly cried out from the surprise.

  “Marguerite!” She forced her voice into a hushed tone. “You frightened me!”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered back.

  She remained at the threshold of the room. She had removed her housecoat and her nightdress fell over her body like a Grecian robe. Her chestnut hair was long and full over her shoulders, and her cheeks were flushed from the night air.

  “What are you doing here?” Her right brow arched quizzically as she shut the door. “It’s almost dawn.”

  “I know, I know,” I responded sheepishly. “I saw you go out, and I waited up for you to return.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Marguerite.”

  I could tell by the inflection of her voice that she was annoyed at me. She must have thought I had been spying on her.

  “I only noticed you leaving by accident. I heard you climbing down the trellis
, and when I approached my window, I saw you running down the street.”

  She was facing her nightstand now and quickly braiding her hair to put into her sleeping cap.

  “I have less than two hours left to sleep, Marguerite,” she said, turning now to face me. “I really don’t need to explain myself…unless you’re going to sit here and tell me you’re planning on tattling to my mother.”

  “No, no,” I hastily told her. “I would never dream of telling anyone.”

  She sat down on the bed and motioned for me to slide over.

  “Then tell me,” she whispered as she nestled into the covers, “why are you here?”

  I was nervous in her company. I felt intimidated, though I knew that I should be the one who commanded respect. It struck me as ironic that I would feel more confident around Vincent than I would around Madame Chevalier’s daughter.

  I smoothed out my nightdress over my knees and slowly met her eyes. “I have come to you for advice,” I started. “I have no one else to confide in.”

  Louise-Josephine’s eyebrow arched quizzically. “Yes?” she asked. “What is it? You’ve succeeded in piquing my curiosity.”

  “I…I want you to tell me what it’s like.”

  “What what’s like?” She shook her head.

  I placed my arm underneath my cheek. “Tell me what it’s like to have someone to love.”

  I DID not allow Louise-Josephine to get much sleep that night, so exhausting was my bombardment of questions.

  At first, she started out cautiously, revealing few details. But as the night progressed and she saw how little exposure I had had to such affairs, she began to relish telling me the details. She whispered as she told me about her love’s stolen kisses and secret meetings, and the lustful feelings that overwhelmed her when she was by his side.

  “Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe,” she whispered. Her fingers traced her collarbone as she turned to face me.