“Nous nous débattons contre des hommes de génie effroyablement ambitieux et ne désirant qu’écraser tout ce qui se trouve sur leur passage. C’est écoeurant…”(4)
(English translation – extraits)
(Subtitles can be activated in the video sample by clicking on the cc button)
PISSARRO: We struggle against terribly ambitious geniuses that wish nothing but to crash everything they may find on their way. It is disgusting! (…)
1st NARRATOR: Gauguin pretends now to despise public opinion. He settles in a hut on Vercingtorix Street. He wears a strange costume and he lives with Annah la Javanaise, a Singhalese, who used to be a vagrant on the streets of Paris, and who is now accompanied by a small monkey. (…)
GAUGUIN: My dear Molard, during the last two months I had to take morphine at night and I am deadened now; in order to ward off my insomnia, I have to drink alcohol that makes me sleep for four hours a night. This deadens my mind, it makes me sick. Yes, I do walk, limping, with a stick and I am desperate because I cannot go farther to paint a landscape anymore. All these successive misfortunes, the difficulty of earning my living, despite my reputation, adding to my taste for exoticism, made me take an irrevocable decision. I shall return in December and I shall work every day to sell all my possessions, all together or piece by piece. Once I have the money in my pocket , I shall leave for Oceania. Thereupon, any critical remark is useless. Nothing can keep me from leaving. I want to live the rest of my days free and calm, without having to worry about tomorrow, away from the eternal battle against idiots. What a stupid existence the European life is.
