The burden is sometimes so heavy

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 22 July 1883

The weeks passed - many, many weeks and months of late - when the expenses were repeatedly heavier than I could afford, notwithstanding all my worrying and economizing and however much I racked my brains. As soon as your money arrives, I must not only manage to live ten days on it, but I have so many things to pay for at once that from the start those ten days which are ahead are bound to mean starvation. . . .

And it happens to me, too: when I am sitting in the dunes or somewhere else, I have a faint feeling in my stomach because there isn't enough to eat. . . .

Well, I should not care, Theo, if I could only stick to the thought, It will come out right, we must go on. But now your saying, "I can give you little hope for the future," is like "the hair that finally breaks the camel's back" to me. The burden is sometimes so heavy that one extra hair is enough to make the animal sink to the ground.

Now what am I to do?

Letter 301
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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