My grief chokes me

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, c. 15-27 April 1882

Since I wrote Mauve: “Do you know that those two months you spoke of have long since passed? Let us shake hands, and then each go his own way, rather than have a quarrel between you and me,” I repeat, since I wrote this and received no sign in reply, my grief chokes me.

Because - and you know this - I love Mauve, and it is so hard that all the happiness he pictured to me will come to naught. For I am afraid that the better my drawings become, the more difficulty and opposition I shall meet. Because I shall have to suffer much, especially from those peculiarities which I cannot change. First, my appearance and my way of speaking and my clothes; and then, even later on when I earn more, I shall always move in a different sphere from most painters because my conception of things, the subjects I want to make, inexorably demand it.

Letter 190
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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