Vincent van Gogh | Madame Roulin and Her Baby | The Metropolitan Museum of Art (metmuseum.org)
Postcard Story – Madame Roulin and Her Baby – Vincent van Gogh – 1888 – The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Second Daughter – 07/26/21
…and not the first, nor the second, nor…but, yes, definitely the last, for, yes, she was tired and even Emmanuel…tired in different ways, still active in others, but even he tells her no more, that … he can be satisfied in different ways, or not satisfied at all, for the number that have survived, will suffice for their old age, for comfort, for profit, for joy, for love, all they have worked for, all they have paid good silver and gold for over these long and tedious years, as he seems to think of the years they have been together. And as she held the baby, her baby, yes, so that her daughter could see at least a little of the world, her world, before her. Then from beholding her daughter’s open and curious eyes, the woman lowered her own eyes in thought … in sorrow … for the life ahead of her child, who, yes, would be clothed, and well-feed, and cared for, and even loved as far as she, her mother, was able … to care and touch and comfort … and protect … from the things she could not really protect her daughter … those things she herself was not protected from, and not even her sons … and that is from a life which will be summed up in stacks of gold and silver, and not as a person, not as a daughter, or one who was once a precious little baby girl, but as one whose life and soul will measure less than a body to work and marry well for her parents, a person appraised and valued for gold as the return on a cold and brittle investment. And the woman lifted her eyes to behold her child, and thought of her own life, sold in a sense for the family prosperity in marriage to Emmanuel, a good man in many ways, but one whom she did not love. And upon the deaf ears of her father, she pleaded with him, for she wanted to study the stars of the heavens, and she wanted to walk along the seashore and observe and think and write of what she saw and understood, but her words were not understood or valued … as neither was her life … and she thought and vowed and first prayed to the Virgin … as she had been taught that to pray to God is only for men – but she prayed to God that the life of her daughter would be different.
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