英文《亲爱的提奥》-- 梵高

1888 Arles It certainly is a strange phenomenon that all the artists, poets, musicians, painters are unfortunate in material things—the happy ones as well. Guy de Maupassant is a fresh proof of it. That brings up the eternal question: Is the whole of life visible to us, or isn’t it rather that this side of death we see one hemisphere only? Painters—to take them only—dead and buried, speak to the next generation or to several succeeding generations in their work. Is that all, or is there more besides? In a painter’s life death is not perhaps the hardest thing there is. For my own part, I declare I know nothing whatever about it; but to look at the stars always makes me dream as simply as I dream over the black dots of a map representing towns and villages. Why, I ask myself, should the shining dots of the sky not be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? If we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star. On thing undoubtedly true in this reasoning is this: that while we are alive we cannot get to a star, any more than when we are dead we can take the train. So it seems to me possible that cholera, gravel, phthisis, and cancer are the celestial means of locomotion, just as steamboats, omnibuses, and railways are the terrestrial means. To die quietly of old age would be to go there on foot. I feel more and more that we must not judge God on the basis of this world; it’s a study that didn’t come off. What can you do, in a study that has gone wrong, if you are fond of the artist? You do not find much to criticize; you hold your tongue. But you have a right to ask for something better. It is only a master who can make such a muddle, and perhaps that is the best consolation we have out of it, since then we have a right to hope that we’ll see the same creative hand get even with itself. And this life of ours, so much criticized, and for such good and even exalted reasons—we must not take it for anything but what it is, and go on hoping that in some other life we’ll see a better thing than this. （如果谁手头有中文版，欢迎补充，是1888年在阿尔写的第二篇）