Ah, you do darned well to think of Gauguin—they're high poetry, his negresses—and everything
his hand makes has a sweet, heartrending, astonishing character. People don't understand him yet,
and he suffers greatly from not selling, like other true poets.

My dear pal, I would have written to you sooner, only have had quite a few things on my hands;
I've sent a first batch of studies to my brother is one, I've had trouble with my health is two, and
three is that I've rented a house painted yellow outside, whitewashed inside, in the full sun
(four rooms).

With all that, new studies in progress. And in the evening I was often too numbed to write.

That's why my reply was delayed.

Listen, the sonnet about the women of the boulevard has some good things, but it isn't there
yet—the end's banal.

A "sublime" woman, I don't know what you mean by that, nor do you in this case.

Then

"Hunting among the clan of old and young
Those whom she'll take to bed late at night."

Something like that—It's not characteristic, because

© 2007 Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

the women of our boulevard—le petit—usually
sleep alone at night because they screw five or six times during the day or the evening and—late at
night it's that honorable carnivore, their pimp, who comes to collect them and take them home; yes,
but he doesn't sleep with them (only rarely). The worn-out and haggard woman usually goes to bed
alone and sleeps a leaden sleep. But with two or three lines redone, it'll be there.

What have you painted now? I myself have done a still life with—a coffeepot in blue enameled
iron—a royal blue cup and saucer, a milk jug with pale cobalt and white checks, a cup with orange
and blue designs on a white background, a blue majolica jug with green, brown, pink flowers and
foliage, all of it on a blue tablecloth against a yellow background. With these pieces of crockery,
two oranges, and three lemons. It's thus a variation of blues enlivened by a series of yellows ranging
all the way to orange.

Then I have another still life, some lemons in a basket against a yellow background.

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© 2007 Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Then a view of Arles—of the town you see only a few red roofs and a tower, the rest's hidden by
the foliage of fig trees, etc.

All that far off in the background and a narrow strip of blue sky above. The town is surrounded
by vast meadows decked with innumerable buttercups—a yellow sea. These meadows are intersected
in the foreground by a ditch full of purple irises. They cut the grass while I was painting, so it's only
a study and not a finished painting, which I intended to make of it. But what a subject—eh—that
sea of yellow flowers with a line of purple irises and in the background the neat little town of pretty
women. Then two studies of roadsides—afterwards—done out in the mistral.

If you were not expecting my reply right away, I'd make sketches. Courage, good luck, handshake.
I'm worn out this evening.

I'll write to you again one of these days, more at my ease.

Vincent

P.S. The sketch of the woman in the last letter but one is really pretty.
My address:
Place Lamartine 2
Arles

© 2007 Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam