The Green Muse

by Jessie Prichard Hunter

  But of course there was no monster, just empty halls, then an empty room. The orderly left me standing by a naked white bed, looking out a window without seeing a thing, and I heard a timid voice ask for some ink and a pen and realized it was I who spoke.

  The orderly paused; that was all. And then I was alone, and I gave way to despair, and threw myself upon the bed and cried, feeling all the time like an actress in a bad play: The young woman threw herself upon the cold hard bed and wept disconsolately.

  After a long while there were footsteps, but I did not sit up or look around. I simply did not care. Now they were going to take me somewhere else and do something to me, I knew not what; I had heard of the water cure but did not know what it was, had heard something about electric shock being applied to the insane but had not wanted to know more. I was a thing now among other things, with no more volition than the single chair that sat by my new window, the empty desk against the wall, and ­people I did not know were going to decide what was to be done to my body and my mind.

  The footsteps stopped near the bed. A shadow fell across my face. I hardly dared look up. When I did, the same orderly Guillaume, I supposed—­stood, a queer expression on his face. I could not read it: Envy? Curiosity? And something feral and almost rapacious.

  “Dr. Duret says you will surely be of use to Dr. Charcot,” he said without expression.

  I buried my face in my pillow again, I was so frightened. After what seemed an eternity the footsteps receded. Once I could no longer hear them, I dared look up and saw an inkpot on the little table by the single chair, and a pen.

  And I was weeping again, this time for joy, for the clear bright joy of seeing the pot of brown ink, the old black pen made of scarred wood. Suddenly there was something that was mine, something that Augustine knew and loved. And suddenly, for the first time in these endless blighted weeks, I was Augustine, a brown-­haired girl with an upturned nose, a seventeen-­year-­old girl full of the romance of the theater, the country bumpkin who had somehow become the heroine in her own phantastical play. And I sat up and wiped my face and looked out the window, where there was a wall and a patch of grass and an ancient, tangled rosebush. I walked to the chair and sat in it, and it became my chair, Augustine’s chair, the chair where I will sit and write about everything that happens here. This is not the end of Augustine’s story. This is the beginning of Augustine’s Great and Terrible Adventure.

  Chapter 12

  Charles

  THE NEWS IN the Journal Illustré was in my favor, although the weather was not. The rain of last night had begun again. Last week Leonard had arranged for a carriage this morning, and a country ride—­there was a lady he wished to impress. Theo was disappointed in the rain because he wanted some diversion instead of his Friday law lecture.

  So we breakfasted at a tabac, and read that there was a new plat du jour today. Apparent Suicide Proves Murder Victim. A young woman, nicely dressed. Clearly not a prostitute.

  “Charles, where were you last night?” Leonard asked, and I laughed. Nothing could spoil my good mood.

  “I was with a lady,” I told him. Rain was pouring from the gutters and down the street. The sky was black. I suggested we go to see the plat du jour, Leonard’s outing being impossible, and Theo leapt to his feet and capered like a puppy. I was sick of them both. Leonard felt bound, with the failure of his plans, to attend our lecture; I believe he was just avoiding the rain. We parted at the Panthéon.

  “You are morbid,” said Leonard.

  “And you are jealous,” I said. “We will memorize every feature of the plat du jour and bring our portrait home to you.”

  “Charles is in a singularly good humor this morning,” Theo had observed as I ate bread and butter and drank the bitter coffee our landlady provides.

  “He came in late,” said Leonard. They spoke of me as though I were insensate.

  “I took a walk,” I said.

  “He took a walk.”

  “He has worn down the streets of Paris, by the look of his shoes.”

  “And his cape is muddy.”

  “I noticed that. As though it had provided––let us say––a refuge.”

  “A moment of safe passage for a delicate foot?”

  I heard it all, dismissed it all. Like the chattering of birds. I did not care. My love. I was going to see my love. As I pulled my boots on I was certain of her: She would be there.

  It took only a few minutes to walk from our apartments near the Panthéon to the Morgue. On the way Theo asked me indiscreet questions about the lady I had spoken to yesterday afternoon and of the lady I had seen last night. Were they one and the same? Were her morals as supple as her young body? I answered nothing. I told Theo that I did not even know the lady’s name.

  But I was thinking about her.

  The crowd was tremendous, and feverish with excitement. The same country family from the day before was once again in front of me. The father now shared the shining eyes and flushed cheeks of his wife and children. The wife carried what seemed to be the same basket of greens. I bought Theo some cookies to fill his mouth, and some warm wine for my own. I craned my neck without subtlety; I knew I would not see her but that she was there, and she was waiting.

  And quite suddenly the huge entry doors opened and we were all swept inside.

  There was only one figure behind the beckoning glass. Voices rose in pity and admiration; I heard the broken echoes as they swept up and around the vast hall. The crush to see her was three and four deep; but I was in no hurry. Even Theo’s sharp exclamation meant nothing to me. I waited my turn, I stepped up to the glass and beheld the lovely corpse.

  And for an instant I possessed her, naked under the lights in view of all Paris. I heard them speaking about her: Oh, but she has such lovely hair.

  Oh horrible pity, she is so young.

  “It doesn’t seem decent,” the country boy said. “Shouldn’t there be a crucifix on her cheek, and holy water, and a sprig of box to sprinkle it with?”

  “There’ll be all that when the police find out who she is.”

  “Do you see, Father? She looks as if she were talking to angels.”

  I turned my head: a little girl, no more than nine or ten; a pretty girl. She held her father’s hand.

  “She is smiling,” said the girl. “I wonder what she was thinking when she died.”

  “That is morbid, Nicolette. I did not bring you here to think morbid thoughts, merely to lose your young fear of death.”

  “Perhaps,” I said suddenly and to my own surprise, “she was thinking of this place.”

  The girl turned to face me. Her father put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Perhaps,” I said to the young girl’s unafraid, wide-­open eyes, “perhaps she was thinking that today would be the happiest day of her life. Because today she would be coming to the Morgue to meet her lover.”

  And the man hurried the little girl away.

  I heard my name and turned. And it was her, with her light wild eyes. In spite of my bravado, I had been so afraid she would not be there.

  She wore a suit of the type so popular at the time, with a tight-­fitting bodice, a wide skirt, and exaggeratedly wide sleeves above the elbow that made a most satisfying rustling sound as she moved. The suit was of sea-­foam green with turned-­back ivory cuffs, revers, and vest, and the blouse that showed beneath was purest white. At the neck the blouse sported a rose-­red bow that matched the silk roses on her hat, of felt decked with false sprigs of green, which, although they were certainly not even meant to be rose leaves, set off the roses to perfection. Her shoes, which barely showed beneath the dress, were black kid, as were the buttons on her suit.

  “You did not expect to see me.” That was true. I had told myself I was certain of her, but I was not certain.

  “She is not so beautiful as you,” I said, gesturing towa
rd the figure behind the glass.

  She smiled. “She is me.”

  “I walked all night,” I said, “thinking of you.” The first lie I told her; after we dined I had walked, but after two hours I had gone into an absinthe bar to still my nerves, and slept, seated in a booth with the candle guttered out. My nerves had not been stilled.

  But here in the Morgue, she among the living was the most alive, and I knew that from that moment I must have her always by my side.

  Chapter 13

  Edouard

  I AM HOME now, after my first day of work at La Salpêtrière. Richet spent hours just showing me around: The place is a city, an endless labyrinthine series of hallways all identical; I half expected a Minotaur. If this place that houses five thousand souls were a city, its patients could walk its streets freely, stopping to talk to neighbors and shopkeepers along the way. There would be blue above, or the famous pearl gray of the Paris sky. Here the halls are dim, and although the ceilings are not low they feel low: I had the impression that we were in fact underground here, and every window was a surprise.

  And it seems as if one can walk for what seems like miles without seeing a window. The halls are all lit with electric light, with which I am unfamiliar; it disorients me. I was shown the rooms where hydrotherapy is performed, with their constantly working bellows assuring a steady supply of hot water; I glimpsed a young woman immersed to her neck in a steaming tub over which a tarp had been placed; she was kicking her legs, causing water to spill from beneath the tarp, and screaming in the most awful language at what she called her captors.

  “You’re going to have to learn to be tough,” Richet said to me, “if you are to work in this place.” And then, as I look hastily away from both the wailing woman and him, “But your sensitivity shows in your photographs, and that is just what is wanted for our studies here. I just do not want you to be damaged by the things you see and hear at La Salpêtrière.”

  “I am no delicate flower, Richet,” I reminded my friend, but he ignored that and started talking about how all the methods and equipment here are state-­of-­the-­art, the finest anywhere.

  I saw the electroshock machines, black boxes with shiny knobs, and Richet explained how a jolt of electricity to the brain has been proven to activate certain dormant centers, thereby bringing a cataleptic back to life or calming the wild spirit of the madwoman out of control.

  It was a city with dark places indeed, and I was relieved that there were no patients in that room when we were present.

  I did not know which would be more difficult: looking death in the face day after day or observing the details of lives destroyed by insanity.

  Although I was hot to see the Amphitheatre, it was closed up (tomorrow I was to photograph, for the first time, a patient from this place). Richet showed me the room behind the Amphitheatre, a large space replete with plaster casts of former hysterical patients, death masks, two skeletons, a man’s and a woman’s, and various tools and equipment Dr. Charcot uses in his studies and experiments. It was a most satisfying place.

  There was a darkroom, off to the left, with all of the latest photographic equipment; and Richet showed it to me proudly. I envied the electric lamp, the shiny new zinc trays, the rows of bottles containing every kind of developer imaginable. Stacks of gleaming glass plates, stacks of paper ready to be treated. Long marble countertops so unlike the space I have to make do with at home. The sinks were zinc, and deep, and as Richet showed me each item it was obvious he loved this place, and I knew that I would come to love it as well; the idea that its strangeness would in time be replaced by a comfortable familiarity was a solace to me: La Salpêtrière is a cold, forbidding place, and I look forward to a not-­too-­distant future when I feel at home in its great hallways, no matter that today this seems an impossible goal.

  I was anxious to meet with the great Dr. Charcot of whom I had heard so much. But Richet informed me that the doctor was busy, and would be busy, for several hours. His dedication to his work was common knowledge, his stamina legendary. I was not to see him today.

  Everywhere I went I saw the sad inhabitants of this placed, walked or drawn along or half-­dragged by burly young male attendants. There was not a single smile from either, and no words exchanged that I heard. I had to remind myself several times that I was here to help these poor souls only by documenting the phases of the illnesses, that the Father of Neurology might study these illnesses in a new and different light.

  But still the obvious suffering made me uneasy.

  At home that evening I looked at my darkroom with a jaundiced eye, but I was determined not to let envy eat at my spirit.

  I tried to remember I was a lucky man, and I intended to live up to my possibly unrealistic expectations. “You cannot save the world,” Richet said when he saw my expression as one of the unfortunates of the institution was led past us this afternoon. I knew that I could not save the world, and I did not intend to try. But what I could do was help Richet and the great Dr. Charcot improve the lives of the women housed at La Salpêtrière.

  And that would be enough.

  Chapter 14

  From the Journal of Augustine Dechelette

  I MISS MY hairbrush. I miss the hair oil Maman and I made together, rosemary and lavender oils mixed with vanilla for my brown hair. I would have preferred oil of lemon, which is suggested for blonde hair, but Maman would take a length of my ordinary brown and explain, once again, that lemon for blondes, or saffron, which is used on red hair, would only bring about damage to my own mouse-­fur locks.

  Every evening I daubed a bit of this mixture onto the brush, let my hair fall, and bent my head until my hair swung freely almost to the floor. Some nights Maman would brush it for me, one hundred strokes. Some nights, when I preferred to dream, I did it myself, although Maman would stand in the doorway with a worried pout on her pretty face. But I would turn away, then I would lower my head and close my eyes and it was Louis brushing my hair, Louis’ hand on the brush; why can I not remember him here? The smell of his person, which was not one particular smell, no soap or cologne but only his scent, the scent of his hair and skin: It is lost to me. Sometimes after I had seen him I would let down a lock of hair on my way home and hold it across my face that I might smell his scent before it faded. And now it is entirely gone. Everything about Louis is gone, has been gone since that awful moment in my room. Oh, am I really so wicked? I must be, and losing my memories of Louis, which were both so immediate to the senses and so precious to me, must be my punishment. And my penance is to be served here, where the smell of steam pervades the halls, and a strange undeniable odor that smells like nothing I have ever known, nothing I could ever have imagined before they brought me here: the pervasive, intangible scent of fear.

  They have given me a scratchy white cotton dress that barely covers my shoulders, and a blue smock. Flat leather shoes and thick white stockings; there are no petticoats at all. The stockings itch. I have no mirror to gauge my ugliness.

  There is a small panel on the window to my little room; it is covered with closed curtains of indeterminate hue, and I dare not open them, lest by the noise I excite the interest of one of the male orderlies who prowl these halls. Every time I hear footsteps the globe in my throat threatens to strangle me. That had come over me, of late, even when at home, most often before or after seeing Louis. As I neared his shop my breathing would all at once begin to quicken, and my throat would seem to have an obstruction, and I would find myself stopped and standing with my hand at my throat and my heart in my mouth. I knew what it was a symptom of, but I refused to believe it. I took it as a symptom of love.

  Now all of a sudden I felt my heart begin to pound. I was afraid, suddenly, of what I did not know. The blank white walls of my room shimmered and seemed almost about to move. My heart constricted, and I could hardly breathe. What was wrong with my heart? It was beating almost out of control; my throat bega
n to tighten, as though a great, angry hand were reaching down my throat to pull my heart out of my body. Suddenly I thought that I might actually die here, a thought I had never seriously considered before. I am young; I have always been healthy: What was happening to me now?

  I walked with agitation about the room. The bed, the small table, the dirty mullioned window, all seemed designed to create a sense of oppression,

  Ah. My heart had calmed. It was merely the shock of being here.

  The attendants frightened me, with their white smocks and tight mouths. They were all men, and so big! As big as farm boys. And they never said a word, not one of them. There was one who smiled at me, but I was not sure I liked it. He had insinuating eyes. Other than that, he was like Gérard back home, with a face like a cow’s and a clod-­footed gait. But oh, I would be happy even to see Gérard in this dreary place! Anybody from home, anybody who smelt of dandelions and meadow air. It is always stuffy here; I suppose they think we should escape out the windows if they were opened up. Certainly I would run away!

  The other women here are so different from any I have ever met as to seem almost another species. There is an old woman who shouts that she is Mary Magdalene; she is old enough to be Mary Magdalene . . . but I am being uncharitable. There are several women who for much of the time are kept in what are called straitjackets; the straitjacket immobilizes the arms by securing them inside long sleeves that are then wrapped around the body and fastened tightly at the back. These poor souls are piteous indeed.

  There is one who woman who does not speak, but emits high-­pitched screams at intermittent intervals, her face impassive all the while. She rouses my pity. I tried once to approach her, a vacant-­eyed woman older than I but with the eyes and unlined face of a child, but the moment I came near she screamed and screamed, all the while seeming completely unaware of me. And a burly attendant hurried over and took her brusquely by the arm and hurried her away; he was very rough with the poor thing, and I felt responsible both for her distress and her punishment.