1. This was letter 386.

2. Van Gogh added the sentence ‘Painting in ... one dizzy’ later.

3. Tralbaut thought that it was the cemetery of the village of Pesse, to the north of the Dutch Reformed Church (Tralbaut 1959); this was accepted by later researchers, in part on the basis of the church spire. Metselaar, on the other hand, believed that it was the churchyard in Hollandscheveld, a hamlet near Hoogeveen, on the grounds of aspects of the position, the moorland inside the churchyard itself, the little avenue Van Gogh refers to and the pine trees. See Metselaar 2000, and (also for the debate) Dijk and Van der Sluis 2001, pp. 119-122.

a. This is a type of grass (also known as bent).

4. The painting of the churchyard after which the letter sketch Churchyard (F - / JH 396) was made is unknown.

5. This painting of a landscape in the evening is not known.

6. Probably a reference to William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 1, scene 5: ‘The time is out of joint’, since Van Gogh alluded to this expression not long after this: see letter 393, n. 9

7. This expression occurs in Théophile Gautier, Fortunio (1838), chapter 15, where Fortunio says: ‘I hate only my friends and I should feel quite inclined toward philanthropy if men were monkeys’ (Je ne hais que mes amis et me sentirais assez porté à la philanthropie si les hommes étaient des singes). See Théophile Gautier, Fortunio et autres Nouvelles. Ed. Anne Bouchard. Lausanne 1977, p. 91. It is not known whether Van Gogh was familiar with this novel.

b. Means: ‘well-mannered, considerate’.

8. Van Gogh continued to deal with the two suppliers in The Hague, Leurs and Furnée, not only in Drenthe but when he was in Nuenen too.

9. Van Gogh must have meant the scent of the pine trees; turpentine is made from pine tree resin.

10. Theo must have written about Liebermann’s Die grosse Bleiche – Die Rasenbleiche (Bleaching field at Zweeloo), which was exhibited at the 1883 Salon as La blanchisserie de Zweeloo (Hollande). See letter 402, n.1.

11. See for Herkomer’s The last muster : letter 199, n. 12.

12. Jules Breton, Fille de mineur (Miner’s daughter) (present whereabouts unknown) Ill. 2116 , hung at the ‘Exposition Triennale’ (Triennial Exhibition) which ran from 15 September to 31 October 1883. Theo must have seen the painting there and written about it. Shortly afterwards Vincent asked about the exhibition (see letter 395, n. 6).

13. Van Gogh visited the village of Courrières in Northern France in the winter of 1879-1880; see letter 158.

c. Means: ‘a long overcoat’.

14. Van Gogh underlined ‘alone’ to stress that he was now living apart from Sien.

15. Albertus Hartsuiker marrried Fennigje(n) Veen in 1860, and married again on 22 February 1873. By 1883 Albertus and his second wife Catharina Beukema had three children: Catharina Geertruida, Hilbertus and Adrianus. Hartsuiker sustained injuries to his face in 1874 when the house he owned at that time burnt down. This may explain Van Gogh’s description of his remarkably red complexion. Cf. Dijk and Van der Sluis 2001, pp. 83-85.