When, minutes later, he left me in front of Holst’s office, his somber gaze carried understanding, no anger or blame, only acceptance. He was a fine man. I walked inside, praying he would find a woman who could love him back.

I hefted my bag and strode straight to the secretary behind the desk, a young man who couldn’t have been long out of school. “I would like to speak with Meneer Holst.”

“Is he expecting you?”

“I am a friend of Jan Veth from Bussum.”

The young man sauntered away, his back straight with a sense of his own importance.

I waited, willing myself into a hopeful mood. Richard Roland Holst was a respected Dutch artist. He would recognize talent when he saw it. And once Vincent’s paintings had Holst’s support, doors would begin to open.

As soon as I was seated in Holst’s office, however, I knew the visit would not go well. He looked at me as one looks at a bug found among the bedsheets.

“Mevrouw Van Gogh. How can I help you?” he asked in a tone of how can I rid myself of you the quickest.

He was a handful of years younger than me, in a handsome light suit, his face made more mature by a gentleman’s mustache. His mahogany desk spoke of his importance, and so did the inlaid clock on the wall behind him. He wore a gold signet ring and a ruby pin in his cravat, the trappings of success.

“Thank you for receiving me, Meneer Holst. I understand you are a busy man. I thought, instead of waiting for you to respond to my letters, it might benefit you the most if I brought you some of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings myself.”

I pulled my bag onto my lap and produced the paintings, laying them on the desk in front of me, side by side, as if they were brothers.

“You can see the brilliant way the artist used light on the almond blossoms and through the glass vase, how the image makes one not only see but feel. If you would kindly champion his cause as a supporter of his art, others could see and admire his work.”

Holst’s face remained unchanged, as if I were selling him coal for the winter and extolling the virtues of smaller clumps versus the larger.

I would not let my desperation show. “And in Gauguin’s portrait…” What could I say about it? I was hardly an expert. “Vincent painted him while Gauguin was painting pumpkins. See the flash of yellow here? I met Monsieur Gauguin myself. He most respected Vincent for his talent. The impasto work…”

Holst barely cast the paintings a glance. He stayed standing through my entreaty, enjoying his position, steepling his hands in the gesture of a professor about to correct an errant student.