40. ապրելու հետեւանքները
Ճաշից հետո սենյակումս թերթում էի վան Գոգի նկարների կատալոգը, որ գնել էի ցուցահանդեսում: Ֆրեդը եկավ` ինձ համար անսպասելի.
- Մի միտք եմ հղացել,- ասացի:
40. The Consequences of Living
After lunch I was in my room leafing through the Van Gogh’s catalogue I had bought at the exhibit, when Fred came in, unexpectedly.
“I have an idea,” I said.
“Quentin had an idea, too,” he said, solemnly.
“What idea?”
“To invite us to dinner.”
“Are you serious? When?”
“Day after tomorrow; if, of course, we accept his invitation. I’m supposed to call him back.”
“This is a strange show of affection.”
“Do we accept his invitation?”
“Don’t you think it would be too much to offend the guy twice in one week, and for no reason?” I observed.
“Okay, then I’ll go tell him,” said Fred, and stood up.
“You didn’t ask me what my idea was,” I was hurt.
“Oh, I’m sorry…”
“It turns out that Van Gogh is buried here, not far from Paris. Let’s go visit his grave.”
For a minute this idea seemed a little strange for Fred, but he agreed after a little thought.
“Sure, we have nothing else to do,” he agreed and went to call Quentin.
I left after him. A couple of streets away I had seen a small shop that said “Plants and Seeds.” I had to go there. I was back very soon and asked the manager to find out how I could go to the town of Auvers-sur-Oise. She thought it would be by train, but that she’ll find out and let me know. She called a little later and said you could go to Auvers by trolley.
We had an early breakfast in the morning and went to the station where we could catch the Auvers train. This train consisted of wagons painted in white and green, obviously a product of the 1960’s, with uncomfortable seats. But it went as fast as your heart would desire. The passengers of the train were very interesting. There were peasants with baskets who had probably sold their goods in Paris and were returning home.
Auvers was a small provincial town along the shores of the Oise River. This small town of small houses, narrow streets, and ample trees protected Van Gogh’s memory as if he were a saint. Van Gogh attracts many tourists here and the huge, crouching buses in the narrow streets are testimony to that fact. We had gotten a cab at the station, which took us to the municipal cemetery where in a modest corner of the modest cemetery were buried Vincent Van Gogh and his brother Theo. While we were there, a group of tourists were leaving the area and by the time we got there, there was no one near the grave. I looked around; no one could be seen. I looked for and found a small piece of wood and began to dig little holes in the ground around Vincent’s grave:
“What are you doing?” asked Fred, surprised.
“I’m planting sunflowers,” I said. I had gone to the “Plants and Seeds” store to get these seeds. I planted eight sunflowers around Van Gogh’s grave. Then we sat on a bench near Van Gogh’s grave. We were not talking.
“Fred, so what do you think, was Van Gogh a genius or not?” I asked, finally.
“Why are you looking for qualifiers? Don’t you see those are all words, just words? The important thing is that you live your life as you should, without thinking of the consequences.”
I was shocked that Fred said ‘consequences’ and not ‘results.’
“Did you say that intentionally?” I asked.
Fred didn’t answer right away:
“I wasn’t really thinking but I think I said the right thing. A person should live according to his mission on earth, to dream of results and not think about the consequences. If Van Gogh had thought about the consequences of his life, he should have quickly abandoned painting and chosen the kind of occupation that would at least have provided him enough income to eat. But he didn’t think about the consequences; he dreamt about results. That result came a bit late, but now, with the zeal of a fanatic, you’re planting sunflowers on his grave, you paid three times the regular ticket price to see his exhibit, and his paintings cost millions of dollars. This proves that our Vincent remained true to his earthly mission and lived his short life the right way. I won’t exclude the possibility, though, that a large number of idiots have starved to death hoping that their names, too, will mean something in the future, but have been wrong.”
“That’s where the problem is: to understand your earthly mission. As Coelho says, one should find the thread of one’s life and remain true to it. You know, maybe there really is a treasure buried for each person and one can find it by staying true to one’s life’s path and mission. Except that, people often, I mean almost always, understand that treasure to be treasure in the literal sense. Imagine what it would have been like if Van Gogh had understood it in the literal sense. And picture how those people who lived in the same town with Van Gogh—officials, the well-to-do, the nobility—would have felt, had they known that they were nothing but specks of dust by comparison to the starving, ailing man in rags who had cut off his own ear, whom the children harassed, threw stones at, spit on him and cussed him out. The horrible thing is that none of his contemporaries, or almost none of them, understood that Van Gogh was the way he was to show the nothingness of the world.”
“Have you found your life’s path?” asked Fred.
“Frankly, I don’t think you need to search for your life’s path; you’re born with it. The challenge is to remain true to it, not to deny it.”
“How is that done?”
“Very simply: you just live by what your heart tells you. Of course, sometimes you’re tempted, you make mistakes, and your conscious bothers you. That means that you shouldn’t do those things again. At that point you stand before a choice: to do that which is easy or to do that which is right. This is an extremely easy choice. At times it’s hard, but in fact it couldn’t be simpler. And the most important thing is that you should be aware of what you do and why you do it.”
The tourists began to arrive and we got up to leave. Spring was blooming; the earth was warm and moist. The sunflowers will definitely bud.
(to be continued)
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