Before leaving France, a number of friends had agreed to buy his pictures, and assure him a steady income. These now withdrew their support. He had leased a plot of ground in order to build the house of sculptured wood which he dreamed of; the construction of the house carried away his remaining capital. He was everywhere fleeced, not only by the French colonists, but also by the natives, who were growing more and more corrupt every day, thanks to the happy influence of civilization. Even after his house was built, he was not allowed to keep it in peace. The owner of the ground died, leaving his affairs in a tangle; Gauguin was forced to obtain another plot and to reconstruct the house, or see it destroyed. This last he refused to do, so he was forced, finally, to borrow money, a thing he had never done in his life before.
Towards the end of 1897, his situation grew even worse. His eyes, now permanently inflamed, were so painful that he could not even touch a brush. The tragic portrait of himself in profile, which he sent about this time to de Monfreid, clearly reveals the condition of his eyesight. De Monfreid had sent him colors, but these were useless—he could not even exchange them for bread. And to add to all he was in debt, more and more heavily, month after month. De Monfreid wrote him encouragingly, tried to sell his pictures, spoke of articles, of a press campaign on his behalf. The answer was—"I only desire silence, silence and again silence. Let me die in peace, forgotten, or if I ought to live, let me live in peace, forgotten.... What matter if I am the pupil of Bernard or Sérusier? If I have painted daubs, why set out to gild them, to deceive people as to their quality?"
Early in 1898 his resolution was taken. Weary, exhausted, at the end of his tether, he decided to meet death half-way. He finished a large picture, a sort of strange allegory of despair, entitled D'où venons nous? Que sommes nous? Où allons nous? and then took arsenic. The dose was too strong and only brought about terrible nausea, which recurred for some months afterwards whenever he attempted to take food. Meanwhile his creditors menaced him with the destruction of the house that had taken him so much trouble to build.
In order to obtain food, he shortly afterwards returned to Papeete and, at the age of fifty, took up a position as a shipping clerk at the Board of Public Works, with a salary of six francs a day. To such straits was he reduced, and yet he continued the fight. Can one help admiring his tenacity?
Meanwhile, the devoted de Monfreid had been busy. He had enlisted the interest of Degas, of Vollard and others, and had succeeded in selling some of the artist's pictures. Gauguin might now have counted upon a steady income, had he chosen to forget past injuries. But with him, there was to be no compromise. Because Bernard, Sérusier, Maurice Denis had made his theories popular and had even claimed to have some influence on his development, he refused either to be ranked with them or to exhibit in their company. Of course he merely made himself more unpopular in Paris by such conduct. But Gauguin's personality was of a kind unable to endure the society of second-rate people. He admired genius where he found it, in a few solitaries such as Degas, Poe, Balzac, and Mallarmé. For ordinary society, he preferred either natives or children. Nevertheless his pictures were sold and, by de Monfreid's efforts, he found himself out of debt in 1899 and able to return to his house, now in a deplorable state of neglect and decay. Things seemed to improve a little, though he was now permanently crippled by the disease of his legs. He set himself once more to paint and to plant the flower seeds which de Monfreid had sent, at his request, from France. Ill, ruined in health and physique, a victim to drugs, he went onward to his goal.
Matamua (Olden Days).
II