Fafner's 遁世居

這篇是留給我自己存檔用的。

我買的 "Lust for Life" 是合訂本，與 Irving Stone 的另外兩部小說 "The Presidents's Lady" 和 "The Agony and the Ecstasy" 合成一大本。好處是便宜，而且郵寄時等於一次寄三本，省了運費。對了，我要是在這種運費是計次，而不是計重的國外網站買東西，總喜歡買大本、或多本的套書，這樣運費比較划算。

而這合訂本，是經過重新編排過的，號稱是 "complete and unabridged"，字體是又小又密。本文部分應該是沒有刪減，但是其他部分，像是目錄和附註，就被拿掉了。再加上書本每一頁的頁頭，並沒有章節名稱，所以若要找尋特定內容，就很不方便。

因此，我在寫前面的介紹文時，特地跑到圖書館去，借了 "Lust for Life" 的單行本回家，果然查閱起來方便多了。介紹寫完該是還書的時候，我本來想把目錄和附註影印下來，讓我的 "Lust for Life" 完整一點。後來又想，反正沒多少字，就練習一下英打吧！

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE -- LONDON

1.  L’ange aux poupons
2.  Coupil and Company
3.  In its own image, love creates love
4.  “Let’s forget it, shall we ?”
5.  The Van Goghs
6.  “Why, you’re nothing but a country boor !”
7.  Ramsgate and Isleworth

BOOK ONE -- THE BORINAGE

1.  Amsterdam
2.  Kay
3.  A stuffy, provincial clergyman
4.  Latin and Greek
5.  Mendes da Costa
6.  Where lies the greater strength ?
7.  Evangelical school
8.  The Blackjaws
9.  A miner’s hut
10. Success !
11. Terril
12. Marcasse
13. A lesson in economics
14. Fragile
15. Black Egypt
16. Exit God
17. Bankruptcy
18. An incident of little importance
19. As one artist to another
20. Enter Theo
21. The old mill at Ryswyk

BOOK TWO -- ETTEN

1.  “There’s a living in that !”
2. Fou
3.  The student
4.  Mijnheer Tersteeg
5.  Anton Mauve
6.  Kay comes to Etten
7.  “No, never, never !”
8.  There are some cities in which a man is forever ill-fated

BOOK THREE -- THE HAGUE

1.  The first studio
2.  Christine
3.  Work in progress
4.  A man needs a woman
5.  “You must hurry and begin to sell !”
6.  Goodness grows in curious places
7.  Savoir souffrir asns se plainfre
8.  The merciless sword
9.  Love
10. The Holy Family
11.  Theo comes to the Hague
12. Fathers are funny
13. L’art, c’est un combat
14. -- And so is marriage

BOOK FOUR -- NUENEN

1.  A studio in the vicarage
2.  The weavers
3. Margot
4.  “It’s loving that’s important, not being loved”
5.  Whither thou goest
6.  Inquisition
7.  “Your work is almost salable, but . . . ”
8.  The Potato Eaters

BOOK FIVE -- PARIS

1.  “Ah, yes, Paris !”
2.  The explosion
3.  “Why should anyone want to be a count when he can be a painter ?”
4.  Portrait of a primitive
5.  Painting must become a science !
6.  Rousseau gives a party
7.  A poor wretch who hanged himself
8.  Art goes amoral
9. Père Tanguy
10. The Petit Boulevard
11. Art for the workingman
12. The Communist Art Colony
13. Southward, ever southward, to the sun !

BOOK SIX -- ARLES

1.  Earthquake or revolution ?
2.  The painting machine
3.  Le Pigeon
4.  Postman
5.  The Yellow House
6.  Maya
7.  Gauguin arrives
8.  The sound and the fury
9.  Fou-rou
10. “In existing society, the painter is but a broken vessel”

BOOK SEVEN -- ST. REMY

1.  Third Class Carriage
2.  The Fraternity of fous
3.  An old crock is an old crock
4.  “I discovered painting when I no longer had teeth or breath”

BOOK EIGHT --  'AUVERS

1.  The first one-man exhibition
2.  A specialist in nervous diseases
3.  One cannot paint good-bye
4.  A more resilient earth
5.  “And in their death they were not divided”

NOTE

THE reader may have asked himself, “How much of this story is true ?” The dialogue had to be reimagined ; there is an occasional stretch of pure fiction, such as the Maya scene, which the reader will have readily recognized ; in one or two instances, I have portrayed a minor incident where I was convinced of its probability even though I could not document it, for example, the brief meeting between Cezanne and Van Gogh in Paris ; I have utilized a few devices for the sake of facility, such as the use of the franc as the unit of exchange during Vincent’s trek over Europe; and I have omitted several unimportant fragments of the complete story. Aside from these technical liberties, the book is entirely true.

My main source was Vincent Van Gogh’s three volumes of letters to his brother Theo (Houghton, Mifflin 1927-1930). The greater part of the material I unearthed on the trail of Vincent across Holland, Belgium, and France.

It would be ingratitude indeed if I did not acknowledge my debt to the host of Van Gogh friends and enthusiasts in Europe who gave unsparingly of their time and material : Colin Van Oss and Lóuis Bron of the Haagshe Post ; Johan Tersteeg of the Coupil Galleries in The Hague ; the family of Anton Mauve in Scheveningen ; M. and Mme. Jean Baptiste Denis of Petit Wasmes; the Hofkes family of Nuenen ; J. Bart de la Faille of Amsterdam ; Dr. Felix Rey of Arles ; Dr. Edgar Le Roy of St. Paul de Mausole ; Paul Gachet of Auvers-sur-l’Oise, who remains Vincent’s stanchest friend if Europe.

I am indebted to Lona Mosk, Alice and Ray C. B. Brown, and Jean Factor for editorial assistance. Lastly, I wish to express my profoundest gratitude to Ruth Aley, who first saw the book in the manuscript.

I.S.

June 6th, 1934