The Green Muse (15 page)

I tried, and failed, not to look shocked.

“Augustine, I promised myself long ago that I was going to
live
my life. Adventure, love, joy, even degradation of liquor. But I was not degraded, my love François was with me!” And she sounded so happy I found I could not judge her.

“What does it taste like?”

“Oh, green. It turns pearly, but it starts out green. Just tell the Good Doctor it tastes green. That will do nicely, don't you think?”

“I . . . I suppose.”

“You won't be convincing if you talk like that! Have you not always wanted to act? We will write a part for you. Oh, Augustine, what fun we shall have! But we must start right away. You will be seeing the Good Doctor again very soon, and we must have our story ready.”

If ever I am fortunate enough to be a mother, I already know I will be able to deny my child nothing; certainly I cannot deny Adelaide anything. And it was exciting: my first character! And Adelaide had already spoken about dancing. I am no fool—­this is not the stage that Sarah Bernhardt inhabits. It is not Nadar's famous studio, where he has photographed both her and countless other famous, talented, and renowned ­people. ­People out of magazines and books. I am never going to be one of those ­people. But perhaps this is just what I need: an opportunity to try to do what is so near, in such an odd way, to my dreams.

And with such a friend at my side I cannot fail. She will not let me!

 

I
SIT AFTER
a dinner of chicken stew I cooked myself over my fire in an old iron pot my mother gave me when first I left home. I am a passable cook and find that I enjoy it; the repetitive motions, the mixing of ingredients, and the careful cooking are not unlike the repetitive motions involved in developing a photograph. I must be a very simple man indeed, that such a trivial thing as cooking, a woman's job, brings me pleasure!

I have before me a photo album of pictures taken at La Salpêtrière, given me by Richet to study. He assures me that his trust in me has already proven well placed, but still he wants me to study these photographs, that I may gain a better understanding of such things as lighting, positioning of the subject—­a dozen seemingly innocuous things that can result in excellence or disaster in a picture.

I approached the album with a keen anticipation. Learning is a passion of mine; why did that make me think of Augustine? Alone in my bachelor apartments I almost blushed: I wanted to learn more of Augustine; I knew she was far more than the frightened thing I had seen on the stage of La Salpêtrière, more than an ignorant country girl suffering from green disease. How I knew this I could not say. Richet had told me I was a sentimental fool, no matter that the young lady in question was beautiful and helpless.

I shook off such thoughts; after all, if I were similarly swayed by every patient I photographed at La Salpêtrière, I would not last a month! I realized that Richet had given me this album to desensitize me to the patients I would be photographing for our study. A steady mind is perhaps even stronger, in my profession, than a steady hand. And surely if I could photograph the dead I could photograph the living, no matter their condition.

So I took a sip of the coffee I had brewed before my meal, and opened the album. One thing I am not good at is brewing coffee. It is always either too weak, too strong, or burnt. One day when I marry, I really do have to make sure my wife is more than proficient in this task.

As I mused I began to look. Not to study, not yet, but simply to look. That is the first task of the photographer; I think it is the first task of man, actually, but then, M. Martillon always did tell me that I reflected too much. M. Bousson, however, did not.

As I looked I was both shocked and appalled. No other patient in these pages was as Augustine; no other possessed the grace, the charm, the beauty of Augustine. Here were pathetic specimens of insanity indeed: an old woman standing screaming in front of the camera, a young girl writhing on an unmade bed, a woman so vacant of expression that I could not tell if, let alone what, she was thinking at all. The old woman was galvanized, the caption told me, by religious mania; the young woman by the ravages of green disease ­coupled with an unhealthy preoccupation with sex. The other was indeed incurable; the caption showed that she had not spoken in all her life, and almost all her life had been spent at La Salpêtrière. All hope of her learning to speak had been abandoned long ago, and she showed little or no interest in her surroundings or other ­people. I stared at her picture a long time, trying to put myself in her place. I could put myself in the place of the dead easily enough, from long exposure to its horrors and my devout belief that without death, life would have no meaning, but I could not begin to imagine what it must be to be so trapped inside oneself that there never could be any escape.

The old woman was merely repulsive. Religious mania has never made much sense to me, our faith being so clearly laid out for us that there is no need to tax the mind and spirit by overzealousness. But of course that is one of the most common paths to madness, particularly among women. So I determined to memorize the expressions on her face as she flailed through her hysterical seizure, the particular angle of the wrists held stiff at her sides, the expression of passion on her aged face as she communed with angels, the rage she expressed when she thought herself Mary Magdalene, the effects of hysteria on her limbs.

The third subject was a pretty, dark-­haired girl who seemed almost to be playing at madness. There was something unconvincing in the way she pulled her skirt above her knees as she smiled lasciviously into the camera, in the hideous arch of her body in the rumpled bed. I did wonder why the bed was not more neat, the sheets more clean. But I am not here to question Dr. Charcot's methods, I am here to learn.

Then I realized that I knew this girl. This was surely Adelaide Blanchot, of my own village! She was older, but still she wore her hair in a fringe, like my little sister, and had the biggest, darkest eyes I have ever seen. What was this falseness about her photographs that was not present in the others? Did it mean she was more, or less, mad? I had to put the book down a moment and sip at my burnt coffee while I cooled my head. It was cruel indeed to see this girl I had grown up with in such a state.

But soon enough I picked up the album again, and soon enough I was lost in the pictures and stories. I did not leave the album until I felt I felt I had attained at least a little of the distance required for my work. And by that time I had had to light a second, precious candle, as the fire had reduced itself to ember; I was cold, but I was also satisfied. The pictures of Augustine had not yet been added to the book, else my task would have been an impossible one. I could not get her out of my mind; I loved her name; I could not forget her eyes. My own eyes were tired, but my heart was wide awake.

And my dreams that night were beautiful.

 

I
HAVE HAD
a visitor. It is quite extraordinary. I was sitting at my window looking into the courtyard at the woman who screams. She had no attendant with her, and her arms were free. She moved about haltingly; she held her arms at a stiff, unnatural angle in front of her and flapped her hands unceasingly. I had never seen anything like it. Her hands flopped like dead things, broken wings. And she let out the same high-­pitched, intermittent screams I had noticed before. But she did not seem upset as she moved about the confines of the narrow enclosure. She had an absentminded smile on her face, and as she leaned to inspect a tiny growing thing, a rose or a dandelion, her eyes lit with a child's joy.

So that when the door opened, I was smiling too. “Someone to see you,” said the attendant, whom I had not heard moving in the hall. He withdrew but left the door open. And standing there was the man I had seen at Tuesday's lecture, the ginger-­haired man who had been working the camera. He was holding the camera now, so tightly that his knuckles were entirely drained of color. He looked absolutely terrified, which made me like him right away. If he had been at his ease in a place like this I shouldn't have liked him at all.

I couldn't think of anything to say; I said, “Thank you,” without even knowing why.

“No,” he said sincerely. “It is I who must thank you.” He seemed to become suddenly aware that he was holding something, and that that something was his camera; he ran one hand across the pebble grain of the leather box, and I could see it soothed him: “You are a photographer,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, with evident relief. “My name is Edouard Mas. If I am disturbing you—­”

I almost laughed. “ No,” I said. “I am happy for the company.” I went and sat on the edge of the bed, indicating that he might take the chair. I felt ludicrously grown-­up, like a little girl with a leaf-­and-­grass tea set, and beetles from the garden as party guests.

“Please,” I said, motioning again to the wooden chair. With plantain flowers for cakes, and hazelnuts for buns.

“I am I am doing a study,” he said, lowering himself awkwardly into the chair, “of—­of this place.” He fell silent.

I studied his countenance. He was no blockheaded boy like the ones I'd known. Nor yet was he a city sophisticate. He was completely without artifice, and miserable there in that chair, which was too small for him (for he was a tall man, something more noticeable when he was sitting, oddly).

“You don't have to be nervous around me,” I said easily, and thought, Who is this girl? Receiving a strange man in her room at the mental institution as though it were as natural and normal as a child's tea party. And yet I could not be afraid of this man, or suspect his motives. I had never seen anyone so sincere in his aspect; he had a noble brow and an honest mouth and firm chin. There was no dissolution in that face, and no arrogance either. His eyes were completely frank, without the slightest insinuation.

“Of what does your study consist?” I asked him; only later did I notice that while we spoke I only once wondered what my own aspect was like, what I might look like to him: farm girl, crazy woman, child. But it didn't matter. From the very first, nothing mattered when talking to Edouard but the light in his pale eyes.

“Do you want to take pictures of me?” I asked. I did not want to appear excited, but I was, terribly. To be photographed as part of a study ! And instantly I was crestfallen: a study of the insane. Everything changed.

But he surprised me by saying, “What are your dreams, Augustine?”

“Is this part of your study?”

“No,” he said. “I just want you to know that I am not interested in you as a specimen.”

I tried not to show my delight; I tried to remain demure. “ I do not know that I have any dreams here. I have given up all the ordinary dreams of my sex: a husband, children, the opportunity to create a home. I would so love a home! With a little garden, and . . . but you see, there is no point in dreaming about such things. I had a friend once, she had a mirror. Do you have a mirror, Monsieur?”

“In my apartment, yes. Would you like me to bring you one?”

“I don't know. I do not know whether I want to see what I have become now. I used to look in the mirror at least once a week. And oh! Look what that did to me. Perhaps if I had not looked, I would not have dreamed. I would not have dared . . . Oh, if I had never thought,
Perhaps I am pretty enough for
—­” I stopped, appalled at myself.

“Looking in a mirror cannot affect your morals, dear girl,” he said, smiling. “Is that what you think? I think every woman in Paris has looked into a mirror at one time, and they are none the worse for it. Who told you that looking into a mirror was hurtful?”

“Oh, I have always known it. My mother has never looked into a mirror. Papa would never allow such a thing. He is worried enough about the clocks!”

“The clocks? Surely there is no harm in looking at a clock!”

I let out a little laugh and was alarmed to hear that it sounded like a little cry.

“Oh, no, my good Monsieur, you must not think our little village that much a backwater! But my father protests the coming day when all clocks in France are set to Paris time. He says he will tie himself to the face of the big clock on the cathedral on that day.”

Edouard laughed. “I think I like this Papa of yours.”

“But you do not think he is right about mirrors.”

“Many ­people fear progress, and not just scientific or industrial progress, but everything that comes with them. There can be no harm in a pretty girl finding out just how pretty she is.”

I stiffened; I became aware of myself. A blush suffused my visitor's cheeks; it was clear he was sorry at having said something so bold. And I was touched that he suffered the same as I from crimsoning of the skin. He made as if to reach out his hand but did not move.

“Aren't you afraid,” I said suddenly, “of being alone with an insane woman?”

He threw back his head and laughed. It was characteristic of him, I was to find. It was almost the only time he lost his restraint.

“You are not insane, Mademoiselle,” he said. He was still chuckling. “I do not know how you came to be in this place, but it was not through any infirmness of mind, of that I am certain.”

“But how can you know such a thing?” I asked in surprise. “I have spoken to Dr. Charcot, and he seems to think I belong here.”

“You have spoken to Dr. Charcot?” His voice lowered and took on a tone of hushed respect.

I bridled; I could not help it. “Dr. Charcot is a terrible man!” I blurted. “He sits in a black room with black furniture and makes pronouncements on ­people as though they were here only for his amusement!” Instantly I was chagrined; what if he were to leave? I felt a sense of loss far greater than was warranted. I do not know what showed on my face.

But his eyes remained kind. “I am certain,” he said gently, “that the great doctor has a fearsome aspect. I have heard”—­and here he laughed lightly—­“that many of his students fear him greatly!”

Perhaps it was because I had been so isolated that Edouard immediately assumed for me the importance that he did. That I was so starved for a kind word or glance that the first man who smiled on me would be perceived almost as a savior.

But I do not think it so. There was something in his eyes approaching nobility, something in his smile approaching the sublime. His compassion was at once so immediate, so complete, that, once it had enveloped me, I would ever after fear losing it. Edouard had, in the space of a moment, become my friend.

“I have been engaged by Dr. Charcot to make a photographic study of his work here at La Salpêtrière,” he said. For the first time he forgot himself; he leaned forward in his seat. “First I propose to photograph the building and the grounds; next, the inmates. Then I shall make studies of the hydrotherapy equipment, and the uses to which it is—­what is it, Mademoiselle?”

I pointed out the window. I put my finger to my lips and made a motion with my other hand.

Edouard slowly turned his head to see that the woman in the courtyard was holding a dandelion with a broken head in her left hand. Her right hand had not ceased its flapping, but the left had apparently stopped long enough for her to pick the flower, whereupon it must have continued its flapping at least until the dandelion's head broke. I could not ascertain her age; I know only that she was past young adulthood and was looking at the damaged flower with awe and something like satisfaction. She flapped her left hand a few more times, and the head broke off and fell softly to the ground.

And the woman began to scream like an infant, in great big gulping cries. I turned my head away because her face had taken on all the disconsolate anguish of a toddler, and I could not bear it.

Edouard took my hand. It was a natural gesture, almost without meaning. Certainly he was not taking a liberty. I leaned my head against his shoulder and cried without shame for the poor imbecile in the courtyard, and for my own desolation. And Edouard let me cry, and made no further move to comfort me.