Lust for Life

About the Book

The classic fictional biography of Vincent Van Gogh. No artist was ever more ruthlessly driven by his creative urge, nor more isolated by it from most ordinary sources of human happiness, than Van Gogh. A painter of genius, his life was an incessant struggle against poverty, discouragement, madness and despair.

Lust for Life skilfully captures the exciting atmosphere of the Paris of the Post-Impressionists and reconstructs with great insight the development of Van Gogh’s art. The painter is brought to life not only as an artist but as a personality and this account of his violent, vivid and tormented life is a novel of rare compassion and vitality.

About the Author

Irving Stone was born in San Francisco in 1903 and received his B.A. from the University of California, Berkley in 1923 and his Master’s degree from the University of Southern California in 1924. He wrote plays and supported himself by writing detective stories until the publication of Lust for Life, his first novel, in 1934. Stone called his work “bio-history” and based his novels on meticulous and extensive reserach into the lives of the historical characters at the heart of his novels. He maried his editor, Jean Factor, in 1934. He founded the Academy of American Poets in 1962. He died in Los Angeles in 1989.

Also by Irving Stone

Clarence Darrow for the Defence

They Also Ran

Immortal Wife

President’s Lady

Love is Eternal

The Agony and the Ecstasy*

The President’s Lady

The Origin

*also available in Arrow Books

Irving Stone Lust for Life

To the memory of my mother

PAULINE STONE

Prologue London

1

“MONSIEUR VAN GOGH! It’s time to wake up!”

Vincent had been waiting for Ursula’s voice even while he slept.

“I was awake, Mademoiselle Ursula,” he called back.

“No you weren’t,” the girl laughed, “but you are now.” He heard her go down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Vincent put his hands under him, gave a shove, and sprang out of bed. His shoulders and chest were massive, his arms thick and powerful. He slipped into his clothes, poured some cold water out of the ewer, and stropped his razor.

Vincent enjoyed the daily ritual of the shave; down the broad cheek from the right sideburn to the corner of the voluptuous mouth; the right half of the upper lip from the nostril out, then the left half; then down the chin, a huge, rounded slab of warm granite.

He stuck his face into the wreath of Brabantine grass and oak leaves on the chiffonier. His brother Theo had gathered it from the heath near Zundert and sent it to London for him. The smell of Holland in his nose started the day off right.

“Monsieur Van Gogh,” called Ursula, knocking on the door again, “the postman just left this letter for you.”

He recognized his mother’s handwriting as he tore open the envelope. “Dear Vincent,” he read, “I am going to put a word to bed on paper for you.”

His face felt cold and damp so he stuck the letter into his trouser pocket, intending to read it during one of his many leisure moments at Goupils. He combed back his long, thick, yellow-red hair, put on a stiff white shirt, low collar and a large knotted four-in-hand black tie and descended to breakfast and Ursula’s smile.

Ursula Loyer and her mother, the widow of a Provençal curate, kept a kindergarten for boys in a little house in the back garden. Ursula was nineteen, a smiling, wide-eyed creature with a delicate, oval face, pastel colouring and a small, slender figure. Vincent loved to watch the sheen of laughter which, like the glow from a highly coloured parasol, was spread over her piquant face.

Ursula served with quick, dainty movements, chatting vivaciously while he ate. He was twenty-one and in love for the first time. Life opened out before him. He thought he would be a fortunate man if he could eat breakfast opposite Ursula for the rest of his days.

Ursula brought in a rasher of bacon, an egg, and a cup of strong, black tea. She fluttered into a chair across the table from him, patted the brown curls at the back of her head, and smiled at him while she passed the salt, pepper, butter and toast in quick succession.

“Your mignonette is coming up a bit,” she said, wetting her lips with her tongue. “Will you have a look at it before you go to the gallery?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Will you, that is, would you . . . show me?”

“What a droll person he is! He plants the mignonette himself and then doesn’t know where to find it.” She had a habit of speaking about people as though they were not in the room.