The Yellow House

by Martin Gayford

  Vincent’s action on the evening of December 23 suggested that he was again recalling Zola’s strange novel. But if so, why did he inflict the punishment of Brother Archangias on himself? In the novel, the friar, rough and unpleasant, stands for the unbending laws of the Old Testament. He makes it his business to persecute the local children for their natural, sinful behavior, his favorite punishment being to pull their ears. A prominent victim of the friar is the altar boy, Vincent, who has unruly red hair—a detail that would have impressed the other Vincent, who could claim Bruyas as a brother partly on grounds of hair pigmentation.

  Near the start of the novel, Archangias catches Vincent in the churchyard, looking at a bird’s nest. This place is the child’s “paradise of nests, lizards and flowers.” Archangias destroys the nest and suspends the boy by his ear in mid air. Vincent van Gogh, too, had been obsessed by nests—he painted and drew them at Nuenen, where his studio had been full of them.

  There might have been one more connection in his mind: the ear of Catherine Eddowes, sliced off by Jack the Ripper on September 30. It was characteristic of Vincent’s mind that it skipped from one association to another. In the Musée Fabre at the beginning of the week he had experienced a helter-skelter of associations.

  Now, in the anguish of Gauguin’s departure, Vincent must have experienced another such typhoon of thoughts and feelings. In his agony of mind and whirling confusion, Vincent did what the voices in his head did, as he later revealed: he blamed himself. He was responsible for the terrible, solitary life he led (isolated again now that Gauguin had left); he was guilty of causing the collapse of his dream of a shared studio. Vincent punished himself as Archangias had been punished in the novel, as St. Peter punished the soldier in Gethsemane, as the red-haired altar boy, Vincent, had been chastised for his misdemeanors and as Catherine Eddowes had suffered at the hands of the Ripper.

  He took his razor, and slashed. Then he wrapped what he had removed, and gave it to one of those “little good women” of Rue du Bout d’Arles.

  Contact with Rachel and her colleagues was the nearest thing to a sensuous or emotional life he had, a little taste of paradise at 2 francs a time. To Vincent, they were sisters of mercy. The murderers of the autumn had made prostitutes suffer; Vincent punished himself and gave the result to a prostitute. Not surprisingly, she didn’t understand, nor did anyone else. And when he came to his senses, even Vincent claimed to have forgotten why he had done such a strange and horrible thing.

  There was understandable consternation at the brothel. The following morning a passing gendarme named Alphonse Robert was summoned. There, Virginie Chabaud, who ran the establishment, showed him the ghastly offering that Vincent had presented to the girl Rachel.

  He questioned them, opened the package and certified that it did indeed contain an ear. “It was my duty to inform my superior immediately.” Forthwith, Commissioner Joseph d’Ornano and other officers went to look for Vincent in the Yellow House.

  While this drama was being played out a few hundred yards away in the Yellow House, Gauguin was tossing and turning in his hotel bed. He did not get to sleep until three and woke up later than usual, around seven-thirty. When he was dressed, he walked over to Place Lamartine, perhaps intending to make amends for the row the night before, or at least to say goodbye in a more amicable fashion and collect his belongings. Possibly, he was a little concerned as to what had happened to Vincent on his own.

  The sight that met his eyes as he approached the Yellow House was not reassuring. There was a great crowd of onlookers gathered in the square. “Near our house there were some gendarmes and a little gentleman in a bowler hat who was the Commissioner of Police.” This was d’Ornano, the man who had been caricatured so cheerfully in Gauguin’s sketchbook.

  Gauguin had no idea what had happened. But he must have been extremely alarmed; he no sooner appeared than he was arrested because the house “was full of blood.” Presumably Gauguin came along before the police had entered the Yellow House, otherwise they would rapidly have established that Vincent was still alive. They had probably seen the evidence of carnage through the glass at the top of the studio door.

  This must have been a terrifying moment for Gauguin. As he knew well, it was quite possible that Vincent had committed suicide; it was also possible that his death might look like murder. D’Ornano apparently assumed the worst.

  Gauguin recalled:

  The gentleman in the bowler hat said to me straightaway, in a tone that was more than severe, “What have you done to your comrade, Monsieur?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Oh, yes… you know very well… he is dead.”

  I would never wish anyone such a moment, and it took me a long time to get my wits together and control the beating of my heart.

  Anger, indignation, grief, as well as shame at all the suspicious looks that were tearing my entire being to pieces, suffocated me, and I answered, stammeringly: “All right, Monsieur, let us go upstairs. We could talk about it up there.”

  Perhaps Gauguin then produced his own key; at any rate, they climbed the stairs. Gauguin’s starring role in the next part of the story made his account a little suspect:

  In the bed lay Vincent, rolled up in the sheets, curled up in a ball; he seemed lifeless. Gently, very gently, I touched the body, the heat of which showed that it was still alive. For me it was as if I had suddenly got back all my energy, all my spirit.

  But perhaps he really had been the first to touch the body.

  Then in a low voice I said to the Police Commissioner, “Be kind enough, Monsieur, to awaken this man with great care, and if he asks for me tell him I have left for Paris; the sight of me might prove fatal to him.”

  I must own that from this moment the Police Commissioner was as amenable as possible and intelligently sent for a doctor and a cab.

  Vincent regained consciousness, though it does seem that Gauguin took care to remain out of his sight:

  Once awake, Vincent asked for his comrade, his pipe and his tobacco; he even thought of asking for the box that was downstairs and contained our money—a suspicion, I dare say! But I had already been through too much suffering to be troubled by that. Vincent was taken to a hospital where, as soon as he arrived, his mind began to wander again.

  Gauguin was more specific, if not necessarily more accurate, when he gave his report to Bernard in Paris. He did not mention Vincent’s worry that he had absconded with the household’s petty cash, but he did describe what happened when Vincent was taken to the hospital, the Hôtel Dieu, on the other side of Arles: “His state is worse, he wants to sleep with the patients, chases the nurses, and washes himself in the coal bucket. That is to say, he continues the Biblical mortifications.”

  This remark suggested that Gauguin connected the ear amputation with the Bible, that is, with Gethsemane. Once he was released by the gendarmes, Gauguin sent a telegram to Theo telling him what had happened. The ear itself—or fragment of ear—was placed in a bottle and carefully handed over by the police to the doctors at the hospital, but far too late to sew it back again. So eventually it was thrown away.

  On Monday, December 24, Christmas Eve, Theo was sitting in his office in an exceptionally euphoric mood. He had already written to his middle sister, Elisabeth, or Lies, telling her of his engagement, when Gauguin’s telegram arrived.

  Theo then wrote to Jo, who was staying with her brother in Paris. “Vincent is gravely ill,” he scribbled on some Boussod et Valadon paper. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but I shall have to go there as my presence is required. I’m so sorry that you will be upset because of me, when instead I would like to make you happy.” He gave the letter to her brother.

  Then he wrote to her again, enclosing some letters to her from his mother and Wil and expressing the wish that Vincent, though very sick, might still recover. He caught a PLM express to the South, probably the 7:15 p.m. train; Jo, who had a heavy cold, came to see him off at the Gare de Lyons.

&n
bsp; Next morning, Theo found Vincent in the hospital at Arles. The “people around him”—which meant Gauguin—told Theo of Vincent’s “agitation,” that he had for a few days been showing symptoms of madness, culminating in this “high fever” and self-mutilation.

  “Will he remain insane?” Theo raised the question.

  The doctors think it is possible, but daren’t yet say for certain. It should be apparent in a few days’ time when he is rested; then we will see whether he is lucid again. He seemed alright for a few minutes when I was with him, but lapsed shortly afterwards into his brooding about philosophy and theology.

  Vincent told Theo that in his delirium he had wandered over the fields of their childhood home, Zundert, and reminded his brother of how they had shared a little bedroom there, both boys’ heads on one pillow:

  It was terribly sad being there, because from time to time all his grief would well up inside him, and he would try to weep, but couldn’t. Poor fighter & poor, poor sufferer. Nothing can be done to relieve his anguish now, but it is deep and hard for him to bear. Had he once found someone to whom he could pour his heart out, it might never have come to this. In the next few days they will decide whether he is to be transferred to a special institution.

  When Theo talked to Vincent about his engagement and asked if he approved of the plan, Vincent replied that, yes, he did, but marriage “ought not to be regarded as the main objective in life.” Vincent, for all his loneliness, had doubts about conventional wedlock.

  Vincent asked for Gauguin “continually,” “over and over.” But Gauguin didn’t go to visit him in the hospital that Christmas Day. He claimed that seeing him would upset Vincent; perhaps he shrank from the pleading to which he would certainly have been subjected.

  Theo left Arles on the night train to Paris on Christmas Day. Probably, Gauguin went with him, leaving so rapidly that he left several paintings and possessions in the Yellow House. He and Vincent never saw each other again.

  12. Aftermath

  December 26, 2005

  Roulin took over the task of looking after the invalid. He had promised Theo that he would report on Vincent’s condition, which he did—bleakly—on Wednesday the twenty-sixth:

  I am sorry to say I think he is lost. Not only is his mind affected, but he is very weak and down-hearted. He recognized me but did not show any pleasure at seeing me and did not inquire about any member of my family or anyone he knows. When I left him I told him I would come back to see him; he replied we would meet again in heaven, and from his manner I realized he was praying.

  On the twenty-eighth, Roulin wrote again with even worse news. Vincent had had a visit on Thursday from Madame Roulin, La Berceuse herself:

  He hid his face when he saw her coming. When she spoke to him, he replied well enough, and talked to her about our little girl [the baby Marcelle] and asked if she was still as pretty as ever.

  Today, Friday, I went there but could not see him. The house doctor and the attendant told me that after my wife left he had a terrible attack; he passed a very bad night and they had to put him in an isolated room, he has taken no food and completely refuses to talk. That is the exact state of your brother at present.

  Evidently, the sight of Augustine Roulin brought back with full intensity all the feelings that he had had in front of her picture on Sunday night. Perhaps it was then that Vincent sang himself those lullabies—in a surprisingly good voice—consoling himself for his loneliness, his pain, his desperation, his lost studio, his lost companion and all the many sufferings of his life.

  The next day, Vincent’s mother, Anna van Gogh, wrote to Theo, noting her conviction that Vincent had been mad all along: “I believe he was always ill and his suffering and ours was a result of it. Poor brother of Vincent, sweetest dearest Theo, you too have been very worried and troubled because of him.” She was divided between joy at Theo’s engagement and grief at Vincent’s breakdown. She wanted to know where Aix was. The best thing, she felt, would be for Vincent to die: “I would ask, ‘Take him, Lord.’”

  Vincent’s youngest sister, Wilhelmina, was filled with pity—and curiosity. She would go to visit him if he were dying—she had the money for the journey—but was he? Could he ever find peace? Or was the disease he suffered from irreversible, and physical? What a difficult life her poor brother had had. Did Gauguin see the catastrophe coming? That last question was one to which no one—perhaps not even Gauguin himself—really knew the answer.

  Meanwhile, events were closing in on Prado, the murderer whose case Vincent and Gauguin had been following and whose fate seemed curiously intertwined with theirs. On the same Thursday, the twenty-seventh, that Vincent had been visited by Augustine Roulin, Prado’s appeal for clemency was turned down.

  Gauguin asked a friend in the Municipal Guard to let him know when the inevitable sequel was to occur. Late that evening he was in the Nouvelle Athènes, a well-known haunt of the Impressionists, when he got a telegram reporting that Prado’s execution was about to take place. There was of course another death of which Gauguin was expecting to hear at any moment: a sad announcement from the hospital in Arles.

  Gauguin had had only one good night’s sleep in several days, yet, exhausted as he was, he went to see Prado die. In France at that time the death penalty was still inflicted in public. Often a large crowd gathered to watch, amounting sometimes to thousands. At half-past two in the morning Gauguin was on the Place de la Roquette, outside the prison, stamping his feet, for it was extremely cold that night. His interest in Prado’s death must have been intense.

  Already the area with the best view—the space around the site of the guillotine—was crowded with dark, motionless, waiting figures. Eventually, the moment came. The gates of the prison opened and the guard marched out, the gendarmes drew their sabers, many of the spectators doffed their hats. Gauguin ran forward to get a better view, dodging between the gendarmes.

  Prado seemed small to Gauguin, but sturdy, holding his handsome head proudly. He looked good “in spite of the evil appearance of his closely shaven head and his coarse white linen shirt.” Later, and implausibly, Gauguin claimed to have overheard Prado question his executioner: “What is that?” Answer: “The basket for the head.” “And, what is that?” Answer: “That is the box for your body.” Gauguin was utterly fascinated by the panoply of judicial death.

  When Prado’s head was on the block, a triangular blade weighted by a 66-pound wooden block was released by the executioner. It fell 14 feet 9 inches on to the neck of the prisoner. In this case, most unusually, it missed:

  Instead of the neck it was the nose that was hit. The man struggled with pain, and two blue-blouses, brutally pushing on his shoulders, brought the neck into its proper place. There was a long minute, and then the knife did its work. I struggled to see the head lifted out of its basket; three times I was pushed back. They went off a few yards to get water in a pail to pour over the head.

  Why did the execution of this criminal so obsess the painter, so much so that he later wrote two accounts of the event? In Gauguin’s mind, Prado was innocent, a victim of an unjust society. He was, in other words, a martyr like the early Christians, whose code word, “ictus,” Gauguin and Vincent used. To Gauguin, the contemporary artist—himself—was just such another outcast. Was there something else? Did Gauguin wonder if he was indeed a murderer, as Vincent’s square of newspaper seemed to accuse him of being? Was he guilty of the death of his deserted friend?

  In Gauguin’s imagination, the horrible image of Prado’s decapitation merged with the memory of Vincent’s mangled ear. About a month later he produced a response by crafting—of all things—a vase.

  It was, again, a self-portrait: a depiction of his own head severed, the ears shorn off, his eyes closed as in death. Once more, his own image and that of Vincent merged in Gauguin’s mind—this time with that of St. John the Baptist and the convicted murderer Prado. It was a portrait to match that of himself as Jean Valjean of Les Misérables: the artist a
s outlaw, criminal and suffering saint.

  Against everybody’s expectations, Vincent recovered rapidly. The house doctor, Félix Rey, predicted (correctly) that he would always retain the “extreme excitability” that was “the basis of his character,” but within a few days Vincent had returned to a normal state of lucidity. He was now concerned that Theo had been anxious over him and that Gauguin had had a shock.

  Vincent still hadn’t been told his housemate had departed from Arles. “Have I terrified him? In short, why hasn’t he given me any sign of life?” Vincent deduced that he must have left with Theo but missed his companion badly. “Tell Gauguin to write to me, and that I think about him all the time.”

  Gauguin, Self-Portrait Jug

  By Friday, January 4, Vincent was well enough to leave the hospital for a short time and walk over with Roulin to the Yellow House, where they stayed for four hours while Vincent delightedly reacquainted himself with his paintings. During his days in hospital, Roulin and the housekeeper had scrubbed the blood off the studio floor and the stairs and tidied up.

  While he was there, Vincent took the opportunity to write a letter to Theo and another to Gauguin. He informed his brother that he hoped soon to start work again on the orchards of spring. To Gauguin he sent a message of mingled affection and reproach:

  My dear friend Gauguin, I take the opportunity of my first outing from the hospital to write you a couple of words of my profound and sincere friendship. I have often thought of you in the hospital and even in full fever and relative weakness.

  Then, abruptly, he shot out what seemed to him the crucial question: “Tell me—was my brother Theo’s trip necessary—my friend?”

  Evidently, Vincent thought the answer was no. He sent his regards to the “good Schoeffenecker” (Vincent, too, was capable of mangling names) and begged Gauguin to desist “from speaking ill of our poor little yellow house.” On the margin, pathetically, were the words, “Please reply soon.”