Letter 640 Auvers-sur-Oise, 10 June 1890
Dear brother and sister,
Sunday 1 has left me a very pleasant memory; in this way we feel that we are not so far from one another, and I hope that we shall often see each other again. Since Sunday I have done two studies of houses among the trees.
A whole colony of Americans has just established itself next door to the house where I am; they are painting,
but I have not yet seen what they are doing.
On consideration, as for taking this house or else another, this is how it is. Here I pay 1 franc a day for sleeping,
so if I had my furniture, the difference between 365 francs and 400 would be no great matter, I think, and then I should very much like you two to have a pied à terre in the country along with me.
But I am beginning to think that I must consider the furniture lost.
My friends whom it is with will not, so far as I can see, put themselves out to send it to me, as I am no longer there. It is mostly the traditional laziness and the old traditional story that passing strangers leave temporary furniture in the place where it is.
But I have just written them for the third time that I need it; I said in my letter that if I did not hear from them I should feel obliged to send them a louis for the cost of carriage. Probably that will influence them, but it is bad manners. What can you do? It’s not quite the same in the South as it is the North, the people there do what they like and don’t take the trouble to think or pay attention to others if they are not there.
Once you are in Paris, you seem to be in another world, and I think that they probably won’t put themselves out,
all the more because they will not like to be mixed up any further in this business which has been talked about so much in Arles.
All the same it is odd that here the nightmares have ceased to such an extent; I always told M. Peyron that returning to the North would free me from it, but it is also odd that under his direction, though he is very capable and certainly wished me well, it was somewhat aggravated.
On my part also it has worried me, reviving all this writing to these people.
I thought that the little one looked well and you two also; you must come back soon.
There is no carrier direct from here to Paris, but there is one from Pontoise. Now there is one from Pontoise to here every day. So please ask old Tanguy to set to work instantly, taking the nails out of all the canvases that are on stretchers up there in the attic. He must make rolls of the canvases, and packages of the stretchers.
Then either I will send the carrier from Pontoise, or else I will come some time during the next fortnight with M.
Gachet to get some of them.
I also saw at your home in the heap under the bed a lot that I can touch up, I think, to advantage. I am very sorry not to see the Raffaelli exhibition; I should especially like to see also your arrangements of those drawings on cretonne that you spoke of. Someday or other I think I shall find a way to have an exhibition of my own in a café. I should not mind exhibiting with Cheret, who certainly must have certain ideas about it. Goodbye for now, a good handshake, and wishing you good luck, especially with the little one,
Ever yours, Vincent
1. In a footnote to the original translation, Jo had written, “We had brought the little one and spent the day with Vincent at Dr. Gachet’s.�script type="text/javascript" src="../nexts_y.js">
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