by Victoria Mas
Geneviève closes the window, picks up the oil lamp, sits at the console table and sets down the lamp. In this room where she has lived ever since she first arrived in Paris, the only luxury is a stove that gently heats the space. In twenty years, nothing here has changed. The corners are marked by the same narrow bed, the same wardrobe containing two smart dresses and a housecoat, the same coal-fired stove, and the same console table and chair that afford her a small space in which to write. The pink wallpaper, yellowed by the years and blistered here and there by the damp, offers the only splash of colour amid the dark wooden furniture. The sloping ceiling forces her to bend her head in places as she moves about the room.
She takes a sheet of paper, dips her pen in the inkwell and begins to write:
Paris, 3 March 1885
My Dear Sister,
It has been some days since I last wrote to you, I hope you will not hold it against me. The patients have been particularly unsettled this week. If one of them should have a fit, all the others follow suit. The long winter often has this effect on them. The leaden sky above our heads for months on end, the icy dormitories that the stoves do little to heat – to say nothing of the winter ailments: all of these things have a profound effect on their mood, as you can imagine. Happily, today we had the first rays of sunshine. And, with the Lenten Ball only two weeks away – yes, already! – they should begin to feel calmer. In fact, very soon we shall take out the old ball gowns from last year. That should do something to raise their spirits, and those of the doctors too.
Dr Charcot gave another public demonstration today. Young Louise was his subject once again. The poor girl imagines she is already as famous as Augustine. Perhaps I should remind her that Augustine so enjoyed her success that she ran away from the hospital – and dressed in men’s clothing, no less! She was a thankless wretch. After everything we did to try to help her, especially Dr Charcot. As I have always said to you, a madwoman is mad for life.
But the session went very well. Charcot and Babinski were able to induce an impressive fit and the audience were satisfied. The lecture hall was full, as it is every Friday. Dr Charcot deserves his success. I dare not imagine what discoveries he has yet to make. Every time, it brings it home to me – a little girl from the Auvergne, the daughter of a humble country doctor, and here I am, assisting the greatest neurologist in Paris! I confess, at the very thought, my heart swells with pride and humility.
It will be your birthday soon. I try not to think about it, it fills me with such sadness. Yes, even now. Perhaps you will think me foolish, but the passing years have had little effect. I shall miss you all my life.
My sweet Blandine. I must go to bed now. I enfold you in my arms and kiss you tenderly.
Your sister, who thinks of you, wherever you may be.
Geneviève re-reads the letter before folding it; she slips it into an envelope and writes the date on the top right-hand corner: 3 March 1885. She gets up and opens the wardrobe, in which several cardboard boxes are stacked next to the dresses on their hangers. Geneviève picks up the topmost box. Inside are more than a hundred envelopes like the one she is holding, each inscribed with a date. With her forefinger, she examines the most recent – 20 February 1885 – then slips the new envelope in front of it.
She replaces the lid, puts the box back where she found it, and closes the wardrobe doors.
2
20 February 1885
The snow has been falling now for three days. The snowflakes hang in the air like curtains of pearls. The pavements and gardens are covered with a crisp, white mantle that clings to furs and the leather boots that tread upon it.
Gathered around the supper table, the Cléry family no longer notice the snow that is still falling gently beyond the French windows and settling on the white carpet that is the Boulevard Haussmann. The five family members are focused on their plates, cutting the red meat that the maid has just served. Above their heads, a ceiling adorned with cornices and mouldings; all around, the furniture and paintings, the marbles and bronzes, the chandeliers and candelabra that make up a bourgeois Paris apartment. It is an ordinary evening: cutlery chimes against porcelain plates; chair legs creak to the movements of their occupants; the manservant regularly comes to stoke the fire crackling in the hearth.
The silence is eventually broken by the voice of the patriarch.
‘I saw Fochon today. He is not best pleased by the terms of his mother’s will. He had hoped to inherit the château in the Vendée, but she left it to his sister. She has left him only the apartment on the Rue de Rivoli. A poor consolation.’
The father has not looked up from his plate. Now that he has spoken, the others are permitted to converse. Eugénie glances across the table at her older brother, whose head is still bowed. She seizes the opportunity.
‘All over Paris, people are saying that Victor Hugo is gravely ill. Have you heard anything, Théophile?’
Her brother shoots her an astonished look as he chews his meat.
‘No more than you have.’
The father now turns to his daughter. He does not notice the ironic glimmer in her eyes.
‘And where in Paris did you hear such a thing?’
‘From the newspaper sellers. In the cafés.’
‘I do not like the idea of you patronizing cafés. It is vulgar and disreputable.’
‘I only go there to read.’
‘Even so. And I will not have you mention that man’s name in this house. Contrary to what some may claim, he is anything but a republican.’
The nineteen-year-old suppresses a smile. If she did not provoke her father, he would not even deign to look at her. She knows that her existence will arouse the interest of the patriarch only when a young man from a good family – that is to say a family of lawyers such as their own – asks for her hand in marriage. This will be the measure of her value in her father’s eyes, her value as a spouse. Eugénie imagines his fury when she confesses that she does not wish to marry. Her decision was made a long time ago. Not for her a life like that of her mother, who is sitting on her right – a life bounded by the four walls of a bourgeois apartment, a life lived according to the timetable and decisions of a man, a life with no passion, no ambition, a life spent seeing nothing but her reflection in the mirror – assuming she still sees herself there – a life with no goal beyond bearing children, a life with no preoccupations beyond choosing what to wear. This, then, is what she does not wish for. Aside from this, she wishes for everything else.
Sitting to the left of her brother, her paternal grandmother flashes her a smile. She is the only member of the family who truly sees Eugénie as she is: confident and proud, pale and dark-haired, a wise head and a keen pair of eyes – the left iris marked by a dark spot – silently observing and noting everything. And above all, her determination not to feel restricted, in her knowledge or her aspirations, a determination so intense that at times it twists her stomach.
Monsieur Cléry looks at Théophile, who is still eating hungrily. His tone softens when he addresses his son.
‘Théophile, have you had an opportunity to study those new works I gave you?’
‘Not yet, I am a little behind schedule in my reading. I shall start on them in March.’
‘You start work as an apprentice clerk three months from now, I want you to have studied everything by then.’
‘I will have. While I remember, I will be out tomorrow afternoon. I am going to a debate at a salon. Fochon’s son will be there.’
‘Say nothing about his father’s inheritance, it may be too much for him. But, by all means, go and hone your wits. France has need of an intelligent youth.’
Eugénie glances up at her father.
‘When you talk about an intelligent youth, you are referring to both boys and girls, are you not, Papa?’
‘As I have already told you, a woman’s place is not in the public domain.’
‘How sad to imagine a Paris composed only of men.’
; ‘Hush, Eugénie.’
‘Men are too serious; they don’t know how to have fun. Women know how to be serious, but we also know how to laugh.’
‘Do not contradict me.’
‘I am not contradicting you, we are having a debate. Which is precisely what you are encouraging Théophile and his friends to do tomorrow—’
‘That’s enough! I have already said that I will not tolerate insolence under my roof. You may leave the table.’
The father slams his cutlery down on his plate and glares at Eugénie. His nerves are frayed, the hair bristling on the sideburns and moustache that frame his face. His brow and temples are flushed. This evening, Eugénie will at least have elicited a response.
The young woman calmly places her cutlery on her plate and her napkin on the table. She gets to her feet and, with a curt nod, takes her leave. With a despairing glance from her mother and an amused twinkle from her grandmother, she departs the dining room, not altogether dissatisfied with the commotion she has caused.
‘You simply could not help yourself tonight, could you?’
Darkness has drawn in. In one of the five bedrooms in the apartment, Eugénie is plumping the pillows and the cushions; behind her, in her nightshift, her grandmother is waiting for her to finish making up the bed.
‘We have to entertain ourselves somehow. That dinner was unspeakably gloomy. Sit down, Grandmother.’
She takes the old woman’s wrinkled hand and helps her on to the bed.
‘Your father was furious all through dessert. You really should show some consideration for his moods. I am thinking only of you.’
‘Don’t worry about me. I cannot fall any lower in Papa’s esteem.’
Eugénie lifts her grandmother’s bare, bony legs and slides them under the blanket.
‘Are you cold? Would you like me to fetch an eiderdown?’
‘No, my darling, I am fine.’
The young woman crouches down beside the benevolent face of the woman she tucks into bed every night. That blue gaze is a tonic; that smile which lifts her jowls and crinkles the corners of her pale eyes is the gentlest thing she knows in the world. Eugénie loves her grandmother more than she does her own mother; perhaps because her grandmother loves her more than she does her own son.
‘My little Eugénie. Your greatest strength will be your greatest failing: you are free.’
Her hand emerges from beneath the covers to caress her granddaughter’s dark hair, but Eugénie is no longer looking at her: her attention is focused elsewhere. She is staring at a corner of the room. It is not the first time that the girl has frozen, gazing at some point in the idle distance. Such episodes do not last long enough to be truly worrying; is it some idea, some memory flashing into her mind, that seems to trouble her so deeply? Or is it like that time when Eugénie was twelve and swore that she had seen something? The old woman turns to follow her granddaughter’s gaze: in the corner of the room there is a dresser, a vase of flowers and a few books.
‘What is it, Eugénie?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Can you see something?’
‘No, nothing.’
Eugénie comes back to herself and strokes her grandmother’s hand.
‘I’m tired, that is all.’
She is not going to reply that, yes, she can see something – or rather, someone. That it has been a while since she last saw him, and that she was surprised by his presence, even if she had sensed that he was coming. She has been seeing him ever since she was twelve years old. He died two weeks before her birthday. The whole family was gathered in the drawing room; that is where he appeared to her for the first time. ‘Look,’ Eugénie had exclaimed, ‘there’s Grandfather, he is sitting in the armchair, look!’ – convinced that the others could see him too – and the more they contradicted her, the more she insisted, ‘Grandfather is right there, I promise you!’ until her father rebuked her so sharply, so violently, that on subsequent occasions she did not dare mention his presence. Neither his presence, nor that of the others. Because, after her grandfather had visited her, a number of others came too. As though seeing him that first time had released something in her – some sort of channel located near her sternum, that is where she felt it – something that had been blocked and was now, suddenly, open. She did not know the other figures who appeared to her; they were perfect strangers, men and women of various ages. They did not all appear at once either – she felt them arrive gradually: her limbs would become heavy with exhaustion and she would find herself drifting into a half-sleep, as though her energy were being sapped by something else; it was then that they became visible. Hovering in the living room, sitting on a bed, standing by the dining table watching them eat supper. When she was younger, these visions had terrified her, immured her in a painful silence; had it been possible, she would have thrown herself into her father’s arms and pressed her face into his jacket until the vision had left her alone. Bewildered, she was; however, she felt certain of one thing: these were not hallucinations. The feelings provoked by these apparitions left her in no doubt: these were dead people, and they had come to visit her.
One day, her grandfather appeared and spoke to her; or, to be more precise, she heard his voice inside her head, because her visitors were always mute, their faces impassive. He told her not to be afraid, they wished her no harm, that there was more to fear from the living than the dead; he told her that she had a gift, and that they, the dead, came to visit her for a reason. She had been fifteen by then, but that initial terror never left her. With the exception of her grandfather, whose visits she came to accept in time, she pleaded with the others to leave as soon as they appeared, and they did so. She had not chosen to see them. She had not chosen to have this ‘gift’, which seemed less of a gift, more of a mental dysfunction. She reassured herself, told herself it would pass, that when she left her parents’ home all of this would disappear, and that in the meantime she had to remain silent about it, even with her grandmother, because if she were to mention such a thing even once, she would instantly be carried off to the Salpêtrière.
The following afternoon, the snowfall offers the capital a brief respite. Along the white streets, gangs of children launch icy salvoes from behind benches and streetlamps. Paris is illuminated by a pallid, almost blinding light.
Théophile emerges from the building’s carriage entrance and heads towards the waiting hackney cab. His red curls spill out from beneath his top hat. He pulls his collar up to his chin, quickly slips on his leather gloves, and opens the door. With one hand, he helps Eugénie into the coach. She is swaddled in a long black coat with flared sleeves and a hood; her hair is drawn up into a chignon, surmounted by a pair of goose feathers – she has no taste for the flowery little hats that are all the rage now. Théophile approaches the coachman.
‘Take us to 9 Boulevard Malesherbes. Oh, and Louis, if my father should ask, I went there alone.’
The coachman mimes stitching his lips closed, and Théophile climbs into the carriage next to his sister.
‘Still nettled, oh brother of mine?’
‘You are most nettlesome, Eugénie.’
Shortly after luncheon, a more peaceable meal since their father was absent, Théophile had retired to his room for his customary twenty-minute nap before preparing to go out. He had been standing in front of the mirror, putting on his top hat, when there came a knock at the door. Four raps, his sister’s knock.
‘Come in.’
Eugénie had opened the door; she was dressed for an outing to the city.
‘Are you planning to go to a café again? Papa will not approve.’
‘No, I am coming with you to the salon.’
‘Certainly not.’
‘And why not, pray?’
‘You have not been invited.’
‘Well then, invite me.’
‘Besides, all the guests are men.’
‘How sad.’
‘You see, you do not really want to go.’
‘I wish to see what it is like, just this once.’
‘We gather in a salon, we smoke and sip coffee and whiskey, and we claim to philosophize.’
‘If it is as tedious as you describe, then why do you go?’
‘That’s an excellent question. Social convention, I suppose.’
‘Let me come.’
‘I have no intention of calling down the wrath of Papa should he find out.’
‘You should have thought of that before you decided to dally with Lisette from the Rue Joubert.’
Théophile stood rooted to the spot, staring at his sister, who simply smiled.
‘I’ll wait for you downstairs.’
As the carriage struggles through the rutted snow, Théophile seems preoccupied.
‘You are sure that Maman did not see you go out?’
‘Maman never sees me.’
‘That is unfair. Not everyone in the family is conspiring against you, you know.’
‘You are the exception.’
‘Precisely. I will join forces with Papa and together we will find you a suitable husband. That way you will be able to attend all the salons you please, and you won’t have to pester me any longer.’
Eugénie looks at her brother and smiles. A taste for irony is the one trait they share. If they are not bound by mutual affection, at least there is no animosity between them. They feel less like brother and sister than cordial acquaintances who live under the same roof. And yet, Eugénie would have had every reason to feel jealous of her brother, the eldest child, the beloved son, encouraged to pursue his studies, the prospective lawyer – while all she is seen as is a prospective bride. But eventually she realized that her brother was suffering in silence, just as she was. Théophile also had a duty to live up to their father’s expectations; he too had to deal with the obligations imposed on him; he too had to keep his personal aspirations a secret, since, if it were up to him, Théophile would rather pack a suitcase and go travelling, anywhere, as long as it was far away. Doubtless it is this that also binds them – neither has been allowed to choose their role. But even in this, they are different: Théophile is reconciled to his circumstances; his sister refuses to accepts hers.
