Letter T32 Paris, 23 April 1890
My dear Vincent,
Your silence proves to us that you are still suffering, and I feel urgently impelled to tell you, my dear brother, that Jo and I suffer too because we know you are ill. Oh how happy we should be if we could do something for you that might give you solace. Dr. Peyron writes us that we are not to be uneasy, and that this crisis, though it is lasting longer than the others, will pass off too. If the distance were not so great, I should certainly have gone to see you,
and I count on it that, as soon as you feel the need of it, you will say the word, and I shall come at once.
Last week it was already a year since I got married. How time flies. We have every reason to be satisfied with this year. I do not forget that you insisted on my getting married, and you were right, for I am much happier. It is true that my dear wife is not like everybody, and that I was marvelously lucky when I found her. We understand each other very well, and our home is pleasant. The little one particularly gives Jo a lot of work, but he is growing surprisingly. He is of a nervous disposition but very gentle. He will stay awake for hours without crying; he is beginning to smile and to make sounds that must be the beginning of speaking. It would do you good to see him and play with him.
It is our intention to pass the two holidays at Whitsuntide with Pissarro, who has invited us. He is going to London this summer to work there.
Your pictures at the exhibition are having a lot of success. The other day Diaz stopped me in the street and said,
Give your brother my compliments and tell him that his pictures are highly remarkable. Monet said that your pictures were the best of all in the exhibition. A lot of other artists have spoken to me about them. Serret came to our house to see the other pictures, and he was enraptured. He said that if he had no style of his own in which he could still express some things, he would change his course and go seek what you are seeking. Lauzet is back; he was not able to call on you, for his mother and sister, who lived in Marseilles, have come to stay with him, and he had to help them move, and he didn’t have a penny to spend on a detour.
My dear brother, remember that nothing in the world would give me greater pleasure than knowing you happy and in good health, and that every day I pray for your speedy recovery.
Be courageous, and a cordial handshake from Jo and from your brother who loves you.
Theo