Letter 19, page 2

of a pimp and a whore who were making up after a quarrel. The woman was pretending to
be indifferent and haughty, the man was tender. I started to paint it for you from memory—on a
little no. 4 or no. 6 canvas—now if you're leaving soon—I'll send it to you in Paris; if you're staying
longer, say so, I'll send it to you in Pont-Aven. I couldn't add it to the consignment, it was nowhere
near dry enough.

But I don't want to sign this study, because I never work from memory—there will be color in
it, which will suit you, but to repeat, here I'm doing a study for you that I would prefer not to do.
I mercilessly destroyed an important canvas—a Christ with the angel in Gethsemane—as well as
another one depicting the poet with a starry sky—because the form hadn't been studied from the
model beforehand, necessary in such cases—despite the fact that the color was right.

If the study I'm sending you in exchange doesn't suit you, just look at it a little longer.

I had the devil's own job to do it with an irritating mistral (like the study in red and green, as
well). Well, despite the fact that it wasn't painted as fluently as the old mill—it's more delicate
and more intimate. You see that all of this is perhaps not at all—impressionist—well, too bad, I
can't do anything about it—but I do what I do with an abandonment to reality, without thinking
about this or that. Goes without saying that if you preferred another study from the batch to the
men unloading sand, you could take it and remove my dedication if someone else wants it. But I
believe that that one will suit you once you've looked at it a little longer.

© 2007 Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam