Authors: Michelle Shine
March 21st
Dawn. There’s a
lacy, iridescent frost at the windows. I am up early, blowing heat through my fingers, unpacking logs, kindling, old newspapers, and lighting the fire. It is Saturday, like Sunday, a day of rest for me, although not always. Sometimes there is work to do at the hospital and very often there are callers with acute ailments. Today Victorine is arriving at eleven. Georges de Bellio, a medical colleague of mine, will come to help with the building of shelves in my kitchen/dispensary, which shall also serve as a pharmacy. There is even running water there thanks to Haussmann, Napoleon III’s lackey, who rebuilt our city to a modern specification.
With the fire crackling, I hunt through six boxes for the medicine required by Victorine. My desk shall separate us. She will sit opposite me an
d say she wishes for some more Mercury, just in case. I will talk to her again about condoms and how they are to be used. I will lecture her on hygiene as prevention against disease. She will purse her lips, rest one elbow on my desk and sit with her chin neatly framed by her hand. She will stare directly at me, and say, ‘Like I said, just in case’.
No doubt I will sigh and dispense a small two-gram vial that will contain around fifteen
pillules. She will take one every time she beds a man unprotected.
She comes for this prescription once or twice a year, ever since I told her at the
Café Guerbois, ‘Mercury is the medicine for syphilis but it is also a poison.’
‘Yes, but can you prevent syphilis, that’s what I want to know?’ she asked, blowing Turkish cigarette smoke up at the ceiling.
‘The disease is endemic.’
Her attention wavered. She was
looking at a man in the corner whose body was wrapped around someone smaller. He must have sensed Victorine’s stare as he let go of his companion and looked directly at us. His left cheek had what appeared from a distance to be a botched scar. His eyes were steely and challenging. His companion was not much older than a child. She swayed as if drunk. Victorine shuddered and pulled her shawl closer around her.
‘I met a man the other day. He sits on the board of the Faculty of Medicine. I can’t remember his name. He knows of you. He said that the medicine you prescribe outside the hospital is rubbish.’
‘Why don’t you try it for yourself? Mercury prophylactically, in minute doses.’
‘Fine.
When can I come and see you?’ she said, smiling broadly as she turned back towards me.
Georges arrives whilst I am still in consultation with Victorine. I make him a prisoner in my bedroom until she leaves.
Coming out of hiding, ‘I propose breakfast,’ he says good-naturedly.
I haven’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime and run wildly fast down the winding staircase. My hand brushes the cast iron balustrade, burning my palm, and I almost trip on the stone steps.
‘Take care, Paul, you’re far too young to die,’ Georges shouts down from under his bobbing handlebar
mustachios, a robust figure in frockcoat, black and white spotted tie, opal pin and bowler hat. His voice is an echo all around him.
‘Come and join me. Don’t be pompous,’ I shout back up.
Georges hails a hansom to take us to his favourite café in the Boulevard des Italiens, where green plants grow in pewter coalscuttles snaking around columns amid a passing scent of pancakes aux citron; sponged walls like marble in caramel and toffee; gilt-framed mirrors reflect black-tailed waiters carrying silver salvers. Women, with lavender and jasmine oozing from perfumed hair, are adorned in organza and lace. We order omelette aux pommes and drink bitter, Arabic coffee.
‘How’s the painting?’ my Romanian colleague asks, tapping his
cigar in an ashtray with his podgy forefinger.
‘I’ve joined the Académie of
Pére Suisse. I go twice a week.’
‘I envy you your talent.’
‘As a painter? Surely not.’
‘As a physician
– consultant in nervous disorders at La Salpêtrière – it’s impressive.’
‘No, what’s impressive is that all your patients are artists and literati, and your consulting room
is the Café Riche.’
Georges sits back and smirks.
‘Clever me,’ he says.
It’s still morning and yet the candle flames wag like tongues on every table.
‘Tell me, when did you last see Edouard?’ Georges asks.
Needing to be back at my practice by noon, I had been in a hurry. I had spent the whole morning at the hospital, detained by a woman named Manon, a patient, who had just been informed that her father had died. Her pupils were dilated. I waved my hand in front of her face but there was no reaction, she just carried on staring without blinking. Months earlier, when she had lost her sister, she had cut off all her hair and run naked through the streets of Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
I wanted to sit with her, hold her hand and be of some comfort, but needed to get across town to Rue
Montholon. I stayed for a short while then caught a crowded omnibus, giving up my seat to a young girl who was pregnant and swayed with the vehicle till it came to a standstill. I grew agitated at the prolonged stop and craned my neck see through the window. There was a rumpus outside the courthouse. The police were arresting a man. Crowds gathered and no one could get through. Edouard stood on the steps of the Palais de Justice. No doubt he had just visited his father, who was a judge, perhaps for lunch. He seemed very self-assured: his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, his top hat connecting him to the gods. He was in conversation with Victorine. She was wearing a black coat, open at the throat. She cocked her head at something he said. I imagined Edouard with his forefinger slipping downwards from the velvet ribbon at her neck.
I say nothing. That wasn’t the last time I saw him anyway.
‘He is not going to Académie Suisse?’ Georges persists.
‘Not of late, why do you ask?’
‘I haven’t seen him for a while that’s all. He used to come by here at least once a week. I’ve had his prescription in my poc
ket for the last month.’
‘When I saw him a couple of weeks ago, I noticed he had a slight limp.’
George winces, calls over the waiter and asks for the bill, which he insists on paying.
Academie
Suisse
March 25th
‘
Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places.’
Camille Pissarro
Charcoal
sketches on greying paper in simple black frames are knocked sideways on the wall as I climb. They boast the signatures of Courbet, Delacroix and Corot. It’s impossible
not
to shoulder them and cause mini avalanches in the cracking wall paint. The stairs demand trudging, each one placed too high above the one before. About half-way up there is one that has almost collapsed into a chasm. I have to manoeuvre my way around it and take a chance where I’m stepping. It’s an expedition. Only the brave come to Père Suisse.
He is hovering at th
e door as usual, making sure no one enters who hasn’t paid a monthly fee. His suspicious eyes lift above his spittoon. He was an artist’s model once, lucky to have inherited this perfect studio to paint in. And he is sufficiently pleased with himself. You can see it in the way he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand after expectorating tobacco-phlegm into a real silver bowl. Père Suisse is the proprietor of a school that has the arrogance to exist without any formal tuition. But there is always an atmosphere of camaraderie in this grimy studio.
‘Ah,’ I breathe out, arriving with aching legs at the summit.
Camille, Victorine, and Henri look around.
‘I’ve arrived,’ I say.
Everyone’s eyes are dreamy. They are lost in design. A young boy in a Grecian toga stands on a plinth, his hair cornfield yellow from some sort of dye. His lips scarlet, and the manner in which he purses them, is distinctly feminine. He holds a bunch of purple grapes.
‘Hello,’ he says, waving.
I find an empty chair; take out my notebook and a pencil from my bag.
‘You know, I’d rather you came in your own clothes,’ Henri says to the model. He perches on a desk and pulls at the material the boy has wrapped around him. A pin comes loose and the costume tumbles from his shoulders folding itself over a belt at his waist. ‘Far more interesting,’ says Henri.
The boy’s face looks rouged. ‘I’m going,’ he says, stepping down, holding his skirts like a sixteenth century maiden. He storms across the room and hurriedly puts on his street clothes. Père Suisse watches silently.
Camille, next to me, has already flipped a pag
e and begun working from memory: an impression of The Boulevard des Italiens – a drawn reproduction of his painting
en plein air,
the road alive with a blue-white tinged surface, showing sunshine after a rainfall, blinding as snow, and countered by the starkness of a red and white awning outside a shop.
I admit to myself sadly, once again, that I must be satisfied with my lesser talent or live in depression forever. And whilst I strive for some lowly satisfaction, greatness seems to come so easily to him; his
eye is so much keener. I long to fill up the walls of my home with his inspiration and decide to follow his lead, recreating the painting in graphite of Manon, lying on a low hospital bed in a cellar, her body slightly levitating.
Camille taps me on my shoulder with his pencil. He leans forwards. We are nearly cheek-to-cheek.
‘The world is not black, my friend. Look up at the sky.’ I lift my chin to the glass panes in the ceiling.
‘What colour do you see?’
‘Grey.’
‘That’s it? Can’t you taste
plum-purple? Cerise?’ I cross my arms and marvel at his insight. He encourages me to imagine the use of colour to create a less heavy mood. I’ve seen him give similar advice to the other Paul, Paul Cézanne, my namesake.
The air is filled with anxiety. It crackles in heated silence. An alkaline scent taunts the dry air. We are still a long way off but spring
is here and once again we will put forward our canvases to be considered by the committee at the Académie des Beaux-Arts. They will judge and decide whether our work is worthy to hang on the walls of Le Salon. It is our only hope of exhibiting before the public. We are, all of us, trying our best to be focused and pointed.
‘What of Edouard, Henri?’ Camille asks.
I look from Camille to Henri, to Henri’s drawing, a bunch of white orchids tossed into a vase on a shaded background.
‘He is not coming anymore. He feels that he has learnt enough
from here,’ Henri answers, broad shouldered.
‘Do we come here only to learn?’ Camille
strokes his beard.
‘You can visit Edouard in his studio. He likes people around him whilst he paints,’ Victorine says, lengthening her spine.
‘I can’t, I will also be painting,’ Camille answers.
‘You visit Courbet,’ she goes on.
‘We all visit Courbet,’ says Henri. ‘Even Manet.’
‘Papa Courbet,’ says Victorine, shading the face of a spider-veined woman in ragged clothes. ‘Why is everyone so interested in Edouard, all of a sudden?’ she asks.
Henri shrugs. Camille carries on as if he has not heard the question. It is a while before anyone speaks. Henri puts his charcoal on the floor and appraises his own work. He combs the fingers of both hands through his mane. His work is sharp, his images exact.
‘We’re not all the same,’ Camille says, eventually. ‘Each of us has different aims and aspirations’.
‘Have you seen his Salon entry this year?’ Victorine asks.
No
one answers.
She smiles
. ‘I wonder if you will be shocked.’
Protest Day
April 16th
‘When you do a thing with your whole soul and everything that is noble within you, you always find your counterpart.’
Camille Pissarr
o
A streetwalker stands, hands on hips, underneath a window on the Boulevard de Clichy. She spits on the ground and treads saliva into stone with the sole of her dirty pink shoe. She is small and slight and too young. Shadows of horses and their carriages run her over again and again.
‘You bastard!
I hope your mother dies of syphilis. I hope your house burns down and your children fry. I hope you don’t eat because thieves take everything you own and when you’re working your wife is fucking another man!’ she calls out.
I stop in my tra
cks on an island in the centre of Boulevard de Clichy. Two street urchins run into me, one after the other. ‘Excuse me,’ I say, but they are already disappearing into the light that shimmers through the trees.
I look up. A man bellows from an upstairs window. His whole head is framed by the azure sky, and his round shirt collar has swallowed his neck.
‘Why
would
I pay you?’ he calls down.
I hear the slight tat
-
tat of footsteps behind me – Victorine. Fixed on the streetwalker, she doesn’t notice me. A bourgeois family descends from a hansom. They walk past as if we are all ghosts. Victorine’s gaze shifts to them, the expression on her face questioning.
Until the streetwalker’s outburst I was in my own world,
discovering how the clouds, sun and sky merge to make colours like peach and fuchsia. I was observing the light, the buildings that cut geometric dark shapes into the world when the sun is just so in the sky; the way darkness dampens mood and hardens contour and the leaves on the trees in the centre of the road – when they are caught in sudden brightness, even the earth beneath them is lightened.
‘The devil will have his way with you; what about the first time?’ yells the girl.
‘A mere figment of your imagination …
Monsieur! Monsieur! Gendarme
!’
‘Sir, do you know this woman?’
‘Would I know such a cow?’
In the theatre, the crowds would be laughing. Hussies in satin dresses, escorted by lecherous men who seek out the smell of sex on a woman’s clothes, would guffaw in the face of this everyday tragedy. Prostitutes cannot afford to be revolutionaries. Meanwhile, it is the playwrights who sit in the cafés that line the streets, drinking
vin blanc and witnessing girls being treated unfairly, who, for money, tell these tales so accurately, so eloquently, catering to the amusement of the average male. Perhaps if I hadn’t taken up a medical profession and not spent time talking to the likes of such women at the Salpêtrière, I wouldn’t understand the injustice and would be laughing myself.
A crowd has gathered. Ladies wearing pastel hues of silk and satin mingle with those less fortunate whose clothes are dull and stiff. Two gendarmes restrain the streetwalker
. Handcuffed, she tries to shrug off their grasp but their fingernails bite deeper into her arms forcing her to start walking.
‘Come on love, it’s not fair to dirty the street any longer than you have to,’ one gendarme says to the amusement of the other.
‘Get off me, you animals,’ she screams.
‘I saw everything,’ Victorine calls out. The streetwalker cranes her neck to look over her shoulder
. ‘I’m Victorine Meurent. I live on rue Maître-Albert, number 17.’
Two men wearing black top hats turn to stare accusingly at
Victorine. One of the gendarmes pulls roughly on the woman’s arm. She starts to trot in order to keep on her feet. Victorine watches until the party of three turns the corner. Then, realising she is late, perhaps, lifts her skirts and runs. I follow her, feeling as if I impose on her footsteps. She stops running and I’m very close on her heels. She turns around.
‘
Doctor Gachet, Paul. I
thought
there was someone behind me.’
‘I’m on my
way to the Café de Bade,’ I say.
‘Of course you are. So am I. Shall we walk together?’ she says, hooking her arm around my elbow.
‘I saw what happened back there. It was very generous of you to give that girl your name and address.’
‘Generous? No. It was very stupid,’ she s
ays, glancing at me and smiling warmly. ‘I’ll probably have that woman turning up at my door and demanding her rights to all my possessions.’
‘And what will you do?’
‘That depends if I like her.’ She elbows my rib cage, teasingly.
There is silence.
‘I’m not sure about Napoleon, but isn’t Haussmann wonderful?’ she says eventually.
‘Yes, quite wonderful,’ I answer. We are in
a narrow street with tall white buildings carved to perfection. They too are art. Their front doors gleam proudly. Not so long ago, Paris was a series of alleyways with dilapidated housing stinking of shit and piss. There is no question that Haussmann, with his rebuilding of the city, is keen on hygiene, and it has given the populace the gift of greater health.
‘His buildings are solid, interestingly
-shaped and quite beautiful to paint.’
‘Yes,’ I say, and think
, that too.
Outside the
café, a multitude has gathered underneath the awning, spilling out into the street. Tables are pushed aside and the inside teems with people. I recognise fellow artists, musicians, actors and newspapermen amongst the throng. Tears prick at the realisation that so many have come out to protest against the decision made by the jury of the Académie. The only new artist’s work they have chosen to exhibit this year is August Renoir’s
La Esmeralda.
How
can
artists survive if they can’t show their work?
Victorine pushes her way through to the front. At the entrance,
Edouard’s eccentric writer friend, Charles, acknowledges me with a wink. I touch the peak of my cap in reply. I can just about see through to the centre of the room and to the left where Camille stands on a table and speaks.
‘It is amazing, what can be achieved by word of mouth
,’ he says. ‘I think you have all come here today because you know that this meeting is not only about painting. Painting is just the beginning. The whole of our culture is at risk.
‘Three hundred fewer artists were chosen this year for the Salon, and only one is not from the old school. All the others comply with certain precepts and
conventions. None of them paint
en plein-air.
Colours are defined and used as designated: blue for sky; grass is green. Nakedness is fine, but only for nymphs and angels.’ Camille hesitates whilst his audience chuckles. ‘The government is an organisation that loves convention and only wants to help its own. I seriously believe this is more about convenience for the powers that be than excellence. This is censorship and many artists are starving in consequence.’
‘We must fight for justice!’ a gentleman calls out, thrusting his fist into the air whilst others whistle and clap.
Paul Cézanne and Henri help Camille down. A thoughtful-looking man with a jacket, waistcoat and wing collar climbs onto a chair and then onto the table. The room goes very quiet. The man coughs into his fist.
‘I am Paul Durand-
Ruel. My business is buying and selling paintings. I have come here today to say that I have seen some of the artwork that has been refused by the Salon this year. Of course, there were submissions that were never going to make it to
any
position on those hallowed walls, but there were others of such excellent quality, so innovative and emotive. Far superior to any of the works favoured by the judges, and yet they were refused.’
The crowd rumbles.
‘If those talented painters continue to be shut out of the Salon and suffer prejudice for extending their creative ability beyond all foresight of their critics, then today marks the beginning of the end for any serious painter and for the soul of the art world. But I am of the opinion … .’
‘Napoleon’s lackeys reign, but what are we going to do about it?’ A voice calls from behind me. Everyone starts to speak at once and the babble rises in an ascending scale. Durand-
Ruel raises his arms and waits for the crowd to quieten.
‘I am of the opinion that we can’t allow this to happen. If I have to take the matter into my own hands, I will.’
Someone whistles.
‘I think I’ve fallen in love with you,’ a joker catcalls.
‘I give my pledge here and now. I will risk my reputation to possess some of the worthy artwork made by these terribly modern painters.’
‘Will you pay the artists? Some of us don’t have enough money to eat.’
‘I will buy the paintings. I will stand them on easels for the whole world to see and if necessary, I will take them out of Paris and exhibit them in London and New York.’
S
omeone has caught my attention – the only other female in the café apart from Victorine. She stands close enough for me to smell the patchouli in her perfume. I check my watch. It is nearing my next consultation time.
I arrive home a quarter of an hour late. Far too many people are waiting and there are only four chairs on the landing outside my apartment. Patients and prospective patients are leaning on the balustrade, sitting on the window ledge, above and below on the stairs. I am careful not to tread on clothing or skin with my footsteps as I ascend. At about every ten paces I stop. ‘Good afternoon,’ I say, to no one in particular.
One man, who does not sit or lean but stands upright, has a
red bush of a beard and hazel irises that look alternately sparky and sad. Hands in his pockets, he catches my eye.
‘You have nowher
e to sit,’ I remark as I pass him on the staircase. ‘You’d better follow me.’
I feel the morale of my other patients sag and try to ignore it.
‘How can I help you, Edouard?’ I ask, closing the front door and motioning him over to the seat in front of my desk.
‘I have a problem.’ He interlinks his fingers in his lap and stares at his palms while he speaks. ‘Georges is away, visiting family in Rumania, and Leon has a cough. I’ve come to ask if you would do a house
call?’
‘After surgery hours, although it could be quite late judging by the amount of people out there,’ I say, pushing a leaf of paper and a pen towards him. ‘I’ll need your address.’
Georges has already confided that Edouard sometimes lives with Suzanne
Leenhoff (his childhood piano teacher), and the boy Leon, in the rue de l’Hôtel de Ville. Painting is his only occupation but unlike my friend Camille, whose parents have all but disowned him for marrying the housemaid, Edouard has never been treated like a black sheep by his parents. His clothing is of the finest tailoring and fabrics, and his purse always generously open when he frequents the cafés.
‘
Doctor Gachet, how good of you to come. I’m Suzanne Leenhoff, she says, limply extending her hand out towards mine. ‘Edouard apologises for not being here, although he’s asked me to convey his gratitude to you for coming.’
‘Leon is not well?’
‘Yes. Please. I’m sorry,’ she says, leading the way through the apartment to Leon’s room, past a grand piano, cut glass lampshades and stepping on polished wood floors.
‘Hello Leon,’ I say. Leon lies in bed, propped up with pillows. He is a drowsy, dark haired, slim faced boy of around eleven.
‘I’m Doctor Gachet.’
Leon smiles meekly. He has a rash like sunburn on his neck. Despite the sunshine and the mildness of the day, the window is closed. Glass percussion
s in my leather case as I place it on the floor.
‘The window is closed,’ I say, looking over my shoulder at Suzanne.
‘Do you think he needs air?’ she asks, her large chest straining against her plain linen dress.
‘What do you think, Leon, do you need the air?’
‘No, I’m cold,’ he says, ‘I asked Moedge to shut it.’
‘Who?’
‘Moedge, it is his pet name for me,’ says Suzanne.
Moedge
. I have never heard of this word. It’s similar to the Belgian for mother, but not quite. I place my palm on his forehead. Heat radiates from his skin.
‘Excuse me,’ I say, pulling the sheets off him. It is as I thought; like opening an oven door.
Leon hugs his body and shivers. There’s no sign of dampness from perspiration. Opening the buttons on his nightshirt, I can see that the rash continues all over his torso. I sit down beside him, and feel swollen glands just above his throat. ‘Can I rinse this?’ I ask, taking a spatula out of my bag. She shows me to a tap in the kitchen. Cloudy water sputters forth. I wait until it runs clear, then on returning to the bedroom I tip Leon’s chin towards the light. ‘Can you open your mouth wide?’