THE NATURE OF THINGS

For me, the goals of a lifetime seemed torturously close, and more so as my physical disabilities ate away at my strength. Concentration wavered, the mind drifted with memories, disconnecting me with the problems at hand. I was strangely detached from life; I backed off, trying to see myself as others did; and I saw a small figure, fumbling and slow, wornout and ghostly.

My thoughts during periods of disorientation, went back to Louis-Auguste, who loved to tease me when I was a child by hiding candy in different places around the house. "Find it," he would say, laughing at my inability to do so, "it will taste all the sweeter for the trouble!" I was still the child, reaching out, but short of the delicious treasure I desired with all my heart. In desperate moments, just as I did during the old days in Paris, I struck out blindly, forgetting everything I had learned, hoping for a miracle to reveal the truth to me. When depression developed out of ineptitude, I cried in frustration, demanding the answers. I recognized the futility of this; I knew that nothing would come out of it; that it was vanity of the worst kind to imagine God interceding on my behalf. The balance of my life was precarious; fraught with doubts, and the successes I had achieved in Paris appeared small and unimportant. As in the past, pessimism came easily to me; confidence on rare occasions, and peace of mind hardly at all. For the most part, I looked on myself as a poor failure, a misfit, an individual who was where he was primarily because he happened to be the son of a father who had succeeded admirably in life. When I talked to young artists who visited me at the Chemin des Lauves, I agonized over repeating the same old phrases, the same cliches, the same tired jokes about the Academie. My personal lack of confidence, my inability to believe what I was, made me suspect myself; was I a fraud perpetuating nonsense like my conservative friends? Even with this shaky belief in myself, I continued to spout the same old things, like a preacher repeating a monologue he has given every Sunday for most of his life, a preacher who has grave doubts about the truths he is talking about. "Developing drawing or painting," I would say, "as a stovepipe hat with an eye to volume." I had become an oracle, a machine playing the same tune whenever it seemed appropriate. Underneath this veneer of pretension, the real Cezanne existed: unhappy, timid, boiling inside, and self-deprecating. My life, to be honest, had always been this way, and the future would show more of the same thing; I was fated to see life as incomplete. I was destined to suffer with this, and while I was suffering, I believed I had answers to correct the condition. I understood perfectly that assumptions of this kind are absolute nonsense; that what I was doing was self-indulgence and nothing else; part of it was old age; I was the water rushing to the sea, and as the river banks narrowed, the current moved at a faster pace; I knew, as I was carried along, that the luxury of contemplation was over; and like the debris in the river, I could only go where the water decided to take me. Unfortunately, wisdom doesn't necesarily come with the problems of old age; my habit of giving in to the tendency of hitting at my antagonists continued: I still got pleasure from telling visitors of the bad days in Paris; how things were tough for a young provincial with stars in his eyes, and only a few francs in his pocket. I reserved my worst insults for my old antagonists, Bouguereau and Gerome, saying, a stern look in my eyes, "They don't know what it's all about, and I would add, a malacious look in my eye, "they never will know what it's all about!" I especially enjoyed the effect this had on those who were attending the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, but I was careful to make it obvious that I was doing it facetiously, and that there was no intent to offend anyone. Lording it over my former opponents was not something that I enjoyed, and once I'd made my little joke, the thing was forgotten. It is unlikely, however, that I would have been as generous during those years when the Hanging Committtee had made it so difficult for us to get into the Salon d'Automne. The real idea behind my meetings with all these visitors whether it was Bernheim de Villars and his wife, Bernard, Denis, Camion, or a student beginning his career, was to be informative; and outside my attempts at humor, slightly gauche because it didn't come easily, I believe this was achieved to the best of my ability. Once, when a bright young fellow asked me about the academic art which dominated the national exhibition at the Palais d'Industrie each year, I answered: "The elimination of academic painting would be a healthy thing, an environment where all forms of art would be hung impartially, an exhibition of work which exemplified vision and temperament!" The response to this statement was enthusiastic, but my questioner thought there was some doubt about the feasibility of such an idea: "Who," he said, "would decide on the pictures to be hung in the exhibition?" "Who," I replied, a sly expression on my face, "Who," I repeated, "why I would, of course," a reply that made the audience burst out laughing, delighted at the prospect. At a certain point, however, my energy and good will exhausted, I'd break off the interview suddenly, and without warning. I had no control of my actions, circumstances dictated my conduct, and the paranoia that they were laughing at me, overcame my good sense. When guests were left hanging, puzzled by my sudden change of mood, they left politely, wondering if they had done something to offend me. These symptoms were more evident during the intense heat of summer in the Midi which is oppressive in the extreme. When painting at the studio on the Chemin des Lauves became intolerable, I sought relief by walking along the Le Tholonet Road, stopping at different points, to sit under shade trees, or stretch out on the banks of the river where the water passed under the Pont de l'Arc. When this failed to provide relief, I'd be forced back to the house on the Rue Boulegon, sitting in the rear garden, waiting for the cool of evening, wet towels of my forehead, praying for the time to pass rapidly.... During one of these dreadful heat waves, I decided to try Fountainbleau again, knowing, even as I packed my suitcases, that it was a waste of time. As I travelled north in a railway coach full of happy vacationers on their way to Paris or a stay at one on the beach resorts along the channel coast, I was in a state of panic: aching joints, blood pounding in my head, uncertain vision, occasional vertigo, problems which made each move an adventure. Taking the cure at Fountainbleau for physical rehabilitation was just another pointless act which didn't have the slightest effect on the relentless advance of the aging process. In the decade following my last visit, little had changed, the same sick individuals, some in wheelchairs, others getting about with canes and crutches .... The atmosphere, in general, was depressing, the faces of the ill had the same resignation, and, it was clear, that they knew, like myself, that what they were doing was futile. The effect made me wish to be back in Aix-en-Provence, in Madame Bremond's care, following the routines she had laid out for me, near the Chemin des Lauves, just in case I felt well enough to resume work on the "Baigneuses," or one of my other projects. For the time being, I just rested, feeling better because of the cooler air, and attempted a short walk, but my legs, swollen and sensitive, were not up to the test. Human existence, I reflected, was a pot of trouble, a puff of wind signifying nothing, and immortality, a fool's dream, an egotistical fantasy without basis. My life had ground down to a dead stop; no viable alternatives were available; I dreaded thoughts of the future, terrified by the implications, the unknowable, the gray area between life and death. Postponing my return to Aix-en-Provence could not be put off any longer; I was demoralized by pain as I walked toward the train that would carry me from Fountainbleau. The strain of the experience turned me back to the Church; God had become the symbol of going on; he represented the final chapter, and to my fevered mind, he remained the final answer to the burdens I carried, although it was not clear in my mind how this was going to be done .... Safely back in the old house on the Rue Boulegon, I began to attend mass at Saint-Sauveur three or four times a week; it became my only means of striking at the dark forces around me. I had a frightening vision of the future, even with a renewal of my spiritual strength, standing in fearful premonition of the shadows lurking belhind each day. "I lack guts," I once confided to Pissarro, "there is no courage in me to face even the simplest test of character." Then, alluding to my sister Marie, who had the dominant characteristics of Louis-Auguste, I said: "God gave them all to Marie!" As ever, I had no confidence in myself to face the crisis enveloping me: living each day was a cruel experience, a deterioration of mind and body. I went on, not knowing what was behind it, determined to do as much as I could under the circumstances. If it was within my slender thread of energy, I never refused those who came to the Chemin des Lauves to see me in the belief that if they took the trouble to come there, it was my responsibility to try to answer their questions. I loved the brave faces they turned toward the world; they renewed my faith; and like Zola and I in the early days at the College Bourbon, they were vaunting dreams of art and literature. The freedom they enjoyed was won, in part, by the long struggle of the dissident painters. For those who had suffered the trials of that experience, the springtime of life was gone, and the leaves of autumn were falling. Most of them, like myself, were working with physical disabilities, trying to do what they did best to the very end. For some, like myself, dreams had been realized, but a sour taste remained; a sense of incompleteness a belief that the task they had assigned to themselves, was short of what they had imagined. Monet, who had succeeded before any of us, said that recognition, once in hand, is merely "sawdust trickling through the fingers." My father, Louis-Auguste, had advised me against chasing butterflies, saying: "Do not buy the flour until you see if it has any worms in it!" None of us, I believe, really found the satisfaction we anticipated, but life is like this, always stretching just beyond your fingertips, always confusing you with its demands, always enlarging what seemed simple, into something far-reaching and elusive ....     from Pour Moi, Cezanne home