Here I am, sitting on the terasse at the Cafe La Nuit in Arles. My table this night is almost the same table that I sat at when I first visited the cafe four and a half years before. You can see it, it’s the one with the waiter in the painting. Four years ago the little Place du Forum was quiet, tranquil, and there were only two cafes open. That evening was a magical warm fall night with a full moon shining through the big old tree that graced the square.

The big old tree is no longer there. Now the square is full of much younger small trees and the Place du Forum is bustling with activity – the cafes have moved their boundaries of tables onto most of the square to form large terasses. The only way to know that one has ended and another began is to look at the color of their awnings and tablecloths. Today, on the right side of Cafe la Nuit, the cafe is red and on the left, pistachio green.

As the sun sets over the buildings on the other side of the square, the sky glows. For just a moment the sky is that color of cobalt blue that only seems to exist with the setting of the sun in the South of France.

Painting: Terrasse de Cafe la Nuit September 1888

Today I am probably going to begin the interior of the cafe where I eat, by gaslight, in the evening. It is what they call here a cafe de nuit, staying open all night. Night prowlers can take refuge there when they have no money to pay for lodging, or are too tight to be taken to one. — Van Gogh, from Dear Theo

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