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Many of the subjects here are just — in character — the same as in Holland — the difference is in the colour. There’s sulphur everywhere where the sun beats down.

Today has been a good day too. This morning I worked on an orchard of plum trees in blossom — suddenly a tremendous wind began to blow, an effect I’d only ever seen here — and came back again at intervals. In the intervals, sunshine that made all the little white flowers sparkle. It was so beautiful!

I have two models this week, an Arlésienne and the old peasant, whom I’m doing this time against a bright orange background, which, although it doesn’t pretend to represent a red sunset in trompe l’oeil, is perhaps a suggestion of it, all the same.1 Unfortunately, I fear that the little Arlésienne will stand me up for the rest of the painting. The last time she came she had innocently asked for the money in advance that I’d promised her for all the sittings, and as I made no difficulty about that she scarpered without my seeing her again. Anyway, one of these days she owes it to me to come back, and it would be a bit rich if she didn’t turn up at all.

Here, under the stronger sun, I have found what Pissarro said to be true, and moreover what Gauguin wrote me, the same thing. The simplicity, the bleaching-out, the solemnity of great effects of sunlight.