The story of three lemons

Al's sunshine stung Vincent's eyebrows and made him open his eyes. This is a spiral lemon yellow liquid fireball, flying over the blue sky, filling the air with dazzling light. The heat and clarity of the air have created a new and strange world.

Early morning; He stepped down from the third-class carriage and embarked on a winding road-leading to Lamartin Square, with the banks of the Rhone River on one side and cafes and inferior hotels on the other. Al is just ahead, stretching along the foot of the mountain, like a mason's clean mud knife, dozing off under tropical inflammation.

Vincent doesn't care where he lives. He went into the first hotel he passed in the square, the station hotel, and booked a room. There is a dazzling copper bed in the room, a broken kettle in the basin and an indecent chair. The boss moved into a table without paint. There is no place to build an easel, but Vincent has planned to paint outdoors all day.

He put his handbag on the bed and turned and ran out to see the city. There are two roads from Lamartin Square to Al Central District. The circular road on the left is for vehicles. It surrounds the edge of the town and slowly winds to the top of the mountain, passing in front of the Rome office and the amphitheater. Vincent cut through the narrow cobblestone street maze, walked up the long mountain road and reached the city square road, which was scorched by the hot sun. He walked through cold stone courtyards and square courtyards-it seems that no one has touched him since ancient Rome. In order to avoid the scorching sun, the street is very narrow. Vincent can touch the houses on both sides with his fingertips as long as he stretches out his arm. In order to avoid the biting northwest wind, the streets and alleys at the foot of the mountain are crooked, and there is no straight road ten yards long. The street is full of rubbish, and the door is full of children I have always met. Everything looks unlucky and is chased by fate.

Vincent left the city square, crossed a short lane, strolled to the main market road behind the mountain, strolled through the small park, and then stumbled down the hill to the Colosseum. He jumped up in the stands like a goat and jumped to the top. Sitting on a stone, his feet hung on a million-foot-printed intaglio, lit his pipe and overlooked this self-proclaimed territory.

The town under your feet, like a kaleidoscope waterfall, flows directly to the Rhone River. The roof forms a crisscross picture. The roof used to be a red tile, but after baking in the hot sun, it has now become colorful: from the brightest lemon yellow and elegant shell red to the dazzling lavender and khaki.

The wide and swift Rhone River turns sharply along the foot of Ar 'er Mountain and flows straight to the Mediterranean Sea. There are stone dikes on both sides of this river. On the other side of Tranketaye, it is like a colorful city, shining. Behind Vincent are mountains, and the peaks penetrate the clear white light. In front of him is a panoramic view: cultivated fields, flowering orchards, hills raised in Montmaru, fertile valleys cultivated thousands of fields, all of which converge at an infinite point.

However, it was the color of the country that made him raise his hand and set up an arbor on his surprised eyes. The sky is so blue, so harsh, heartless and deep, it is not blue at all, but colorless. The green of the endless field spread out under him is the essence of green, which is crazy green. The scorching lemon yellow of the sun, the blood-red of the soil, the snow-white of solitary clouds over Madail, and the rose cover that revives every year in the orchard. ... these colors are great. How did he describe it? Even if he can put these colors on the palette, how can he make people believe that they are real? Lemon yellow, blue, green, red, rose red, nature is full of domineering with these five tormenting colors.

Vincent walked from the armored car to Lamartin Square and trudged along the Rhone River with easels, paints and canvases.

Apricot flowers are in full bloom everywhere. The flashing sunlight on the river stung his eyes. He left his hat in the hotel. The sun burned his red hair, sucked up the cold in Paris, and sucked up the fatigue, depression and satiety of city life in his soul.

One kilometer downstream, he saw a suspension bridge against the blue sky, and a car on the bridge slowly moved forward. The river is as blue as well water, and the orange banks are dotted with green grass. A group of washerwomen in shirts and colorful hats are washing dirty clothes in the shadow of an isolated tree.

Vincent set up an easel, took a deep breath and closed his eyes. No one can catch such a color with wide eyes. Here, Seurat's scientific stippling, Gauguin's original decorative rhetoric, Cezanne's revelation under the solid surface, Lautrec's color line and violent hatred line all abandoned him.

Vincent is the only one who stays here.

He returned to the hotel at dinner. He sat at a small table in the bar and bought a glass of absinthe. He was flushed with excitement and didn't think of eating at all. The people sitting at the nearby table saw the color splashing on Vincent's hands, face and clothes and began to talk to him. .

"I'm a reporter from Paris," he said. "I have been here for three years, collecting materials for a book about Provencal language."

"I just arrived here from Paris this morning." Vincent said.

"I can see that. Do you want to stay long? "

"yes. I have this plan. "

"Well, listen to me, don't stay here. Al is the craziest place on earth. "

"What makes you think that?"

"I don't want to. I see. For three months, I have been observing these people and telling you that they are all crazy. Look at them. Look at their eyes. I can't find a normal and rational person near this whole Tarascon! "

"What a strange thing." Vincent said.

"Within a week, you will agree with me. The countryside around Al is an area in Provence torn and mercilessly whipped by the sun. You've been in the sun. Can't you imagine how to treat these blind people who live in the sun every day? Really, the sun burned their brains out. And the northwest wind. You haven't tasted the northwest wind, have you? Smell it, honey. Wait a minute. There are 200 days in a year, and the northwest wind makes the whip dizzy. If you want to walk in the street, the wind will blow you against the wall. If you are in the wild, the wind will knock you to the ground and crush you into powder. The wind has twisted your insides, making you feel that you can't stand it for a minute. I saw the terrible wind blowing down windows, uprooting trees, knocking down fences and whipping people and animals in the fields. I'm really afraid that they will be smashed to pieces. I've only been here for three months, and I'm already a little crazy. I will run away tomorrow morning! "

"You must be exaggerating, right?" Vincent asked; "In my opinion, Al's people are very nice, although I see very few people today."

"You see how good it is. Wait till you get to know them. Listen, do you know what my personal opinion is? "

"I don't know, what is it? Please have a cup of absinthe with me. Personally, I think Al is crazy about sex. It's hysterical one after another, making you think it's bound to attack on a large scale, and the corners of your mouth are blistered.

"Did you send it?"

"No, this is beauty. This village is always close to the climax, but it has never been reached. For three months, I have been waiting to see a revolution or volcanic eruption in the city square. I thought more than once that the residents would suddenly go crazy and cut each other's throats! However, whenever they just arrived at the outbreak moment, the northwest wind weakened for a few days and the sun hid behind the clouds. "

"Well," Vincent said with a smile, "since Al has never had an orgasm, you can't be sure it's epilepsy, can you?"

"No," the reporter replied, "but I can call it epilepsy."

"Then why?"

"I am writing an article on this topic for my newspaper in Paris. It was this German article that inspired me. "

He took a magazine out of his pocket and pushed it at Vincent on the table.

"These doctors have observed hundreds of mental patients. Their symptoms are very similar to epilepsy, but they never have seizures. From these charts, you can see how to explain the rising curve of their nervousness and irritability; What does the doctor mean by capricious neuroticism? Well, every patient with these diseases, before the age of 35 to 38, his body temperature has been rising. At the average age of 36, they began to have severe epilepsy. After that, there were several convulsions, which was only a year or two. I will go again. "

"Die too early," Vincent said. "This is when a person has just started to stand."

The reporter put the magazine back in his pocket.

"Are you going to stay in this hotel for a while?" He asked, "My article is almost finished. Once published, I will send you a copy. The viewpoint is: Al is a city of epilepsy. Its pulse has been accelerating for centuries. It is facing its first crisis. This is bound to happen. And it's not far away. Once it happens, we will witness a terrible disaster. Murder, arson, rape, mass destruction! This village can't be beaten and tortured forever. Something is bound to happen. I want to leave before people start foaming at the mouth! I advise you to follow quickly! "

"Thank you," Vincent said. "I like it here. I want to sleep. Can I see you tomorrow morning? No? Then I wish you good luck. Don't forget to send me a masterpiece. "

Every morning Vincent gets up before dawn, gets dressed, walks a few kilometers along the river, or walks in the fields, looking for places that attract him. Every evening, he comes home with a finished oil painting, only because he can't paint any more. Go to bed as soon as you finish your dinner.

He became a painting machine for the blind, but he painted one picture after another, but he didn't know what he was doing.

The orchard in the country is in full bloom. He described all this with great enthusiasm. He doesn't think about his paintings anymore. He has been painting.

Eight years of hard work finally showed the outbreak of victory vitality. Sometimes, as soon as it turns white, he starts painting and finishes it by noon. He walked slowly back to town, had a cup of coffee, took a new canvas and hobbled in the other direction.

He doesn't know whether his painting is good or not. He doesn't care. He was intoxicated by color.

Nobody spoke to him. He doesn't talk to anyone either. He used the inexhaustible power in painting to deal with the northwest wind. Three days a week, he had to tie the easel to a stake that had been driven into the soil. The easel swings back and forth in the wind, just like a sheet on a clothesline. In the evening, he felt sore all over, as if he had been beaten up.

He never wears a hat. The hot sun slowly scorched his hair. Lying in the copper bed of a small hotel at night, he felt as if his head had fallen into a fireball. Sunlight made him color blind. He can't tell the green of the field from the blue of the sky. However, when he returned to the hotel, he found that his painting was a bright copy of nature.

One day, he was painting in an orchard with lilacs. The garden was surrounded by a red fence, and two peach trees with pink flowers set off the blue and white sky.

"This is probably my best landscape painting," he muttered.

Back at the hotel, I saw a letter informing him that Anton Moff had died in The Hague. He wrote under the peach tree: "In memory of Moff, Vincent and Theo", and immediately sent the painting to Moff's house in Urbumen Street.

The next morning, he found an orchard with plum blossoms. When he paints, the wind is very strong, and the waves come and go, and come and go. In the interval of elegance, the sun shines and the white flowers on the trees twinkle. Although the whole landscape on the ground changes every minute, Vincent has been painting. This reminds him of his days in Ninggen, Scheffer, when he often painted in the rain and sand, and the waves in the sea splashed violently on his body and easel. His paintings have a white effect, including a lot of yellow, blue and red. After painting, he saw something he didn't want to paint-northwest wind.

"People will think that I was drunk when I painted this picture." He smiled and said to himself.

He remembered a sentence in the letter from Taiao the other day. When Mr. Testiger visited Paris, he stood in front of Sisley's painting and said to Taikoo Gorge, "I think this artist must have been drunk when he painted this painting."

"If Tessie saw the picture I took of Al," Vincent thought, "he would definitely say it was insanity."

The residents of arles are far away from Vincent. They saw him rush out of the city before sunrise, with a heavy easel on his back, his head bare, his chin sticking out forcefully, and his eyes showing fanatical excitement. They saw him come back, with two fire holes on his face, his head as red as fresh meat, and a damp canvas under his arm, gesturing to himself. The town gave him a name. Everyone calls him by that name.

"Crazy prodigal son!"

"Maybe I am a madman with red hair," he said to himself, "but what can I do?"

The hotel owner cheated Vincent out of all his francs. Vincent can't eat anything because almost everyone eats at home in arles. Hotels are very expensive. Vincent tried every restaurant, but he wanted thick soup, but there was nothing.

"Madam, is it difficult to cook potatoes?" He asked in one place.

"Impossible, sir."

"Is there any rice in that book?"

"That's for tomorrow."

"What about macaroni?"

"There is no place to burn macaroni on the stove. Later, he ate whatever he no longer wanted. Although he didn't get good food in his stomach, the hot sun strengthened his vitality. He replaced the boring food with absinthe, tobacco and Tudor stories. Numerous hours of concentration in front of the easel made him nervous. He needs excitement. Absinthe made him particularly excited the next day-the excitement of being beaten by the northwest wind and baked by the sun.

With the arrival of summer in England, everything is burning. Around him, he only saw a piece of gold, copper and copper steaming under the slightly green blue sky. Everything irradiated by the sun is yellow because it contains sulfur. His painting is a pile of shiny and burning yellow. He knew that yellow had not been used in European painting since the Renaissance, but that didn't stop him. As soon as yellow is squeezed into the canvas from the paint tube, it stays there. His paintings were soaked in the sun, burned by the sun, whipped by the scorching sun and swept by the air.

He thinks it is no easier to draw a good picture than to look for diamonds or pearls. He is dissatisfied with himself and everything he has done, but there is still a glimmer of hope that he will eventually become better. Sometimes, this hope is like a Fata Mogana.

Only when he squeezed out his life to paint, did he feel alive. As for his private life, he didn't. He is just a machine, a blind painting automaton that fills in eating, drinking and painting every morning and makes finished paintings at night.

what is the purpose? For sale? Of course not! He knows that no one wants to buy his paintings. Then why the hurry? Urge him to draw dozens of pictures so that the poor copper bed can be filled. What is this for?

The idea of success has left Vincent. He paints only because he has to, because it can make him less mentally miserable, because it can distract him. He can have no wife, family and children; He can live without love, friendship and health; He can live without safety, comfort and food machines. He can even live without God. However, he cannot do without the strength and ability to create something greater than himself, that is, his life.

He wanted to hire a model, but people in arles refused to model for him. They think they've been fooled. They are afraid that their relatives and friends will laugh at his portrait. Vincent knew that if he painted as beautifully as Mao, people would not be ashamed of being painted. He had to give up the idea of modeling and specialize in landscape painting.

In midsummer, the sea and the heat came, and there was no wind. When he painted, the light gradually changed from light yellow sulfur to light golden yellow. He often thinks of Renoir and his clear lines. In the clear sky of Provence, everything is like this, just like in Japanese prints.

One morning, he saw a girl with brown skin, light blond hair and gray eyes, wearing a rose tight top. In the blouse, he can see a pair of breasts, sharp, small and strong. She is a simple woman, and every line is innocent. Her mother wore dirty yellow and dull blue, bathed in strong sunshine, and set off a bright white and lemon yellow flower, which was very dazzling. They posed for him for hours and made a little money.

That night, when he returned to the hotel, he found that he had missed the girl with brown skin. He can't sleep. He knows that there are technical colleges in arles, but they are all places where Zhu Afu soldiers-blacks in the French army who came to arles for training-spend five francs to visit.

Vincent hasn't talked to women for months, except asking them for a cup of coffee or a pack of tobacco. He recalled margot's sweet words, the fingers of fans touching his face, and the kiss that followed.

He jumped up and hurried across Lamartin Square into the black maze of stone houses. After crawling for a while, he heard something in front. He ran to the front door of the brothel in Rickett Street, just in time to see the gendarmes take away the bodies of two Juafs, who were killed by some drunken Italians. The soldier's red Turkish hat landed in a pool of blood on the uneven cobblestone street. A group of gendarmes put some Italians in prison, and the angry crowd roared behind them, shouting:

"Hang them! Hang them! "

Vincent took advantage of the chaos to sneak into the No.1 brothel on Rickett Street. The boss Louis welcomed him and took him into a small room on the left side of the hall, where several couples were sitting and drinking.

"I have a lovely little girl named Rachel," said Louis. "Do you want to try, Sir? If you don't like her looks, you can choose from other girls. " Can I see her? "

Vincent sat down at the table and lit his pipe. There was a burst of laughter in the hall outside, and a girl came in dancing.

She sat in the chair opposite Vincent and smiled at him.

"My name is Rachel." She said.

"Hey," exclaimed Vincent, "you are still a doll." "I'm sixteen." Rachel said proudly.

"How long have you been here?"

"In Louis here? One year. "

"Let me look at you."

The yellow gas lamp is behind her, and her face is in the shadow. She leaned her head against the wall and raised her chin for Vincent to see.

He saw a chubby round face, big blue eyes, a sexy chin and neck. Her black hair is coiled on her head, which makes her face more like a ball. She only wore a light-colored printed shirt and a pair of sandals. The nipples of her undulating breasts, like accusing fingers, point directly at him.

"You are beautiful, Rachel," he said.

There was a happy, childish smile in her empty eyes. She turned around and grabbed his hand with both hands.

"I'm glad you like me." She said. "I also like those men who like me. This is better, don't you think? "

"yes. Do you like me? "

"I think you are a ridiculous person; Crazy prodigal son. "

"Crazy prodigal son! So you know me? "

"I met you in Lamartin Square. You are always walking around in a hurry with big bags and small bags. Why?

Why don't you wear a hat? Won't the sun shine on you? Your eyes are all red. Are you hurt? "

Vincent laughed at the child's innocence.

"You are so cute, technical herschel. Would you scream if I told you my real name? "

"What's your name?"

Vincent. '

"No, I like to call crazy prodigal son. Do you mind if I call you crazy prodigal son? Can I have something to drink? Old Louis looked at me in the hall. "

Her fingers amused her throat; Vincent watched his fingers sink into soft meat. Her vacant blue eyes smiled, and he saw that her smile was a sign of happiness, which also made him happy. Her teeth are neat, but dark; Her thick lower lip drooped, almost touching the sharp parallel gap on her fleshy chin.

"Order a bottle of wine," Vincent said, "but not too expensive, because I don't have much money."

When the wine was served, Rachel said, "Are you happy to come to my room for a drink?" ? You can feel free there. "

"Very good."

They set foot on a flight of stone steps and entered Rachel's cave. There is a small bed, a dresser and a chair in the cave, and several colorful circular relief prints of Julian (2) are hung on the powder wall. There are two dolls in rags standing on the dresser.

"I brought these two dolls from home," she said. "Hey, crazy prodigal son, take it. This is Jacques and this is Catherine.

I often play with them. Smell, crazy prodigal son, look at your stupidity! "

Vincent stood there with a doll in one hand and turned it off hee hee until Rachel stopped laughing. She took Kathleen and Jacques from him, threw them on the dresser, kicked the sandals into the corner and took off her clothes.

"Sit down, crazy prodigal son," she said. "Let's play with this small family. You are the father and I am the mother. Do you like playing with small families? Yue is a fat girl with two thick legs. Under the pointed pottery is a steep slope, rolling down the country.

"Rachel," Vincent said, "if you call me a crazy prodigal son again, I'll give you a name."

Rachel clapped her hands and jumped on his lap.

"Well, say, what's your name? I like to have a new name! "

"I want to call you little pigeon."

Rachel's blue eyes are hurt. She looks embarrassed.

"Why am I a little pigeon, Dad?"

Vincent gently stroked her Cupid's round belly.

"Because you look like a pigeon, with gentle eyes and a chubby belly."

"Do you want to be a little pigeon?"

"Oh, all right. Pigeons are very beautiful and lovely ... so are you. "

Rachel leaned over and kissed his ear, jumped out of bed and took two glasses to hold wine.

"What funny little ears you have, crazy prodigal son," she said sipping red wine. She drinks like a doll with her nose buried in a cup.

"Do you like it?" Vincent asked.

"I like it. Soft and round, just like a puppy's ear. "

"Then I'll give it to you."

Rachel burst out laughing. She raised the cup to her lips. The joke made her laugh again, and she couldn't stop laughing. A drop of red wine on her left breast dripped through the pigeon's stomach and disappeared.

"You are so cute, crazy prodigal son," she said. "Everyone says you seem crazy. But you're not crazy, are you? "

Vincent frowned;

"Just a little," he said.

"Can you be my lover?" Yan Rachel asked. "I have no lover for more than a month. Can you come to see me every night? "

"I'm afraid I can't come every night, little pigeon."

Rachel smacked her lips. "Why not?"

"Oh, among other reasons, I have no money."

Rachel wrung his right ear playfully.

"If you didn't have five francs, crazy prodigal son, would you cut off your ear for me? I'm glad to have such ears. I want to put it on the dresser and put it every night. "