As soon as Van Gogh finished its fourth leg, the chair climbed off the paper, knocked over the ink bottle and ran. We chased it to the Yellow House doorway. In the middle of the street it paused, shook paint from its wooden legs and accelerated.
Arles, October 1888. Gauguin had not arrived, and the chair had evidently lost patience. Van Gogh pursued it with his pen. Wait, I said. You have not told me what it eats. Chairs do not eat. Then why is it heading for the restaurant?
The real chair by the door saw it and followed. Then the upstairs chairs, the neighbours' chairs, the chairs outside the restaurant. Wood began striking stone all along the street. Several people still sitting were carried away before they could get up, soup bowls in their hands.
I caught the painted chair from behind. It immediately stopped, apparently pleased to have found a passenger. As I relaxed, it flung me into its seat and ran on. Van Gogh kept pace beside me. I reached for his help, but he was studying the moving legs and muttering something.
“Rescue first, draw later!” I shouted. He put his pen behind his ear and caught the chair back. The chair dragged us round a corner, its rear legs crossing a gutter while the others crushed his shoes. Looking down, I saw familiar yellow paint spreading over the seat and staining my trousers into part of it.
It wanted to keep me. I tried to stand, but beneath my backside came the sound of wet paint pulling apart. Do not force it, Van Gogh said. Should I wait for it to dry? Ahead, a restaurant table stood up and blocked the door, apparently opposing this unauthorised expansion of the chair business.
Van Gogh crouched and drew a very long table on a sheet. Before adding legs, he asked me to hold it. I pulled the red ticket stub free of the chair and clipped down a corner of the sheet. He quickly added four stout legs and pushed the paper into the street.
The long table sprang up with a thump, blocking the whole road. The chairs braked and crowded round it, finding their places one after another. Mine joined them and finally released my trousers. Someone put their remaining soup on the table. Bread followed from the roadside. Van Gogh sat opposite me, his sleeves covered in ink.
What now? I asked. He was already drawing a bowl. I held down the sheet and suggested that the bowl should have something in it first. He changed two strokes. A freshly drawn fish leapt out, flicked its tail and knocked the red ticket into the soup.