to the floor, their bodies shrouded in shadow. In the corner of the cottage, two other children sat in near rags and played with a handful of wooden blocks, the sound of them against one another as they were stacked a sharp knocking that Vincent felt in his chest. A feeling of hopelessness overcame him; eventually he sneaked through the door to wait for his father in the yard, and had to recover his breath as if he had been running.
On the way home, Vincent tried to get his father to express his anger about the state of things in that hut, but all he would say was that it was Godâs will. This answer incensed Vincent. Why should it be Godâs will for good people to suffer? He considered the peasants his friends, his brethren, and he wanted his father to be furious that they were made to bear pain. His father was patient with Vincentâs anger; he nodded his head and told him he was right to be upset. But Vincent could not understand. If he was right, why wasnât his father upset, too? Was it Godâs will that he, Vincent, should be angry and that his father should not? How could Godâs will explain agony and also joy? He wondered if that was just a phrase people used, or if it really had meaning, and then he felt guilty for the thought. It gave him a headache; he picked up rocks along the side of the road and threw them, hard, until his arm ached, so he could feel something else.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
In front of a cottage, three boys and a girl sit in a circle, playing a game with a pile of pebbles. They are very intent, their voices low and murmuring, and only one of them looks up at Vincent as he approaches and passes by. The light is too dim to see them clearly, but he can see that they wear the usual uniforms of peasant childrenâthe girl in a gray dress and her hair in a braid, the boys in short pants, all of them barefoot.
A week or so ago, the day before he left the Borinage, a trio of boys just like these, with ragged pants and dirty skin, threw rocks at him as he made his way down a winding path past them. Only one of the rocks hit him, on his right ankle, and raised a welt. He walked on, pretending not to notice that the boys were there. If it werenât for the prick on his ankle, he might not even have heard the words they yelled after him: cracked and crazy and dog. It wasnât the first time the Borinage children had thrown rocks at him, nor the first time, even before the Borinage, that peasant boys had bullied him. The irony is not lost on him: These were exactly the type of children that he would have wanted to play with as a boy, his father inside their huts, ministering to their parents: rough-edged, easily amused. They were just the kind of boys that he tried to teach at the school in Ramsgate, England, along the coast, and just the kind of boys he tried to teach at his makeshift school in the Borinage. What is it about him and boys like that?
When Vincent was a boy, he would watch them play, wondering at their stamina for such simple gamesâwhat fun was it to push a wheel around the school yard with a stick? After trying and failing too often to be like them, he found he much preferred long walks to school-yard games, no one commenting on his behavior or calling him odd, not the bird eggs he collected or the insects he brought home to push down onto pages with pins, labeling them in meticulous script. The Brabant countryside, unchanging and everlasting: the starlings all along a low tree branch, leaping from their perches and floating, circling in long, wide arches, exercising their wings and their throats as they swooped and squawked and squabbled; the white sandy path along the cornfields and gently sloping hillsides, his feet shuffling, a gentle breeze blowing against him; and the landscape, forever shifting, cottages appearing in the distance, crows drifting through fog, starkly black against a wet and heavy white, women in bonnets and dark skirts bent in
On the way home, Vincent tried to get his father to express his anger about the state of things in that hut, but all he would say was that it was Godâs will. This answer incensed Vincent. Why should it be Godâs will for good people to suffer? He considered the peasants his friends, his brethren, and he wanted his father to be furious that they were made to bear pain. His father was patient with Vincentâs anger; he nodded his head and told him he was right to be upset. But Vincent could not understand. If he was right, why wasnât his father upset, too? Was it Godâs will that he, Vincent, should be angry and that his father should not? How could Godâs will explain agony and also joy? He wondered if that was just a phrase people used, or if it really had meaning, and then he felt guilty for the thought. It gave him a headache; he picked up rocks along the side of the road and threw them, hard, until his arm ached, so he could feel something else.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
In front of a cottage, three boys and a girl sit in a circle, playing a game with a pile of pebbles. They are very intent, their voices low and murmuring, and only one of them looks up at Vincent as he approaches and passes by. The light is too dim to see them clearly, but he can see that they wear the usual uniforms of peasant childrenâthe girl in a gray dress and her hair in a braid, the boys in short pants, all of them barefoot.
A week or so ago, the day before he left the Borinage, a trio of boys just like these, with ragged pants and dirty skin, threw rocks at him as he made his way down a winding path past them. Only one of the rocks hit him, on his right ankle, and raised a welt. He walked on, pretending not to notice that the boys were there. If it werenât for the prick on his ankle, he might not even have heard the words they yelled after him: cracked and crazy and dog. It wasnât the first time the Borinage children had thrown rocks at him, nor the first time, even before the Borinage, that peasant boys had bullied him. The irony is not lost on him: These were exactly the type of children that he would have wanted to play with as a boy, his father inside their huts, ministering to their parents: rough-edged, easily amused. They were just the kind of boys that he tried to teach at the school in Ramsgate, England, along the coast, and just the kind of boys he tried to teach at his makeshift school in the Borinage. What is it about him and boys like that?
When Vincent was a boy, he would watch them play, wondering at their stamina for such simple gamesâwhat fun was it to push a wheel around the school yard with a stick? After trying and failing too often to be like them, he found he much preferred long walks to school-yard games, no one commenting on his behavior or calling him odd, not the bird eggs he collected or the insects he brought home to push down onto pages with pins, labeling them in meticulous script. The Brabant countryside, unchanging and everlasting: the starlings all along a low tree branch, leaping from their perches and floating, circling in long, wide arches, exercising their wings and their throats as they swooped and squawked and squabbled; the white sandy path along the cornfields and gently sloping hillsides, his feet shuffling, a gentle breeze blowing against him; and the landscape, forever shifting, cottages appearing in the distance, crows drifting through fog, starkly black against a wet and heavy white, women in bonnets and dark skirts bent in
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