Leaving Van Gogh

by Carol Wallace

  Thus I had a patient with me, even though I was away from the ward. We had some freedom in this regard: though the women’s days were very strictly regimented, a doctor could request that an individual be released from her normal routine. Marie-Claude was unusual in that she could read and write. She had been raised by an uncle who was a priest, and upon his death she secured a job as a governess, but a subsequent series of misfortunes brought her to us, a victim of mania. On more than one occasion she had attacked fellow patients, wardresses, even, once, an unfortunate gardener. Yet between these episodes she was calm and highly intelligent. I had borrowed her from the workroom to help me with my current task alphabetizing three months’ worth of intake reports and checking them for completeness.

  Marie-Claude was in her early thirties, and what distinguished her from her fellow patients was her expression. I thought it was something about her eyes: They moved in conventional fashion. She looked at things, examined them perhaps, then looked away once she had gleaned the information she wanted. She met my gaze but did not stare. She might frown over a page that she had trouble reading, and hold it closer to the lamp—it was so dark in that wretched room that we had to light a lamp in the middle of the August afternoon. She never looked too long or too closely at anything though, and her eyes did not evade you.

  We talked as we worked. This was not the first time I had asked for her help, and I wanted to be sure that she did not resent my appropriating her time.

  “Will you still be paid, even though you are not in the workroom?” I asked, as we settled down to our task. I had had to go to the atelier to pick her up: even the patients considered closest to recovery were never permitted to wander around alone.

  “I’ll be sure of that, Doctor,” she said, with a smile. “I’m quite sharp with numbers, and I always check my pay packet.”

  “Would you like to do work like this when you leave here?” I asked, sitting at the desk and pulling the folder of reports toward me.

  “Who says I’m to be leaving here?” she asked, startled.

  “No one. But you are doing so well.”

  She shrugged. “That’s as may be, Doctor. Well today does not mean well tomorrow.”

  I opened the folder and took out a sheaf of reports, each of which described a patient’s first examination. We were thorough; we could not dismiss the possibility that mental ailments might have their origin in physical causes, so each woman was examined minutely and the results recorded. I spread the sheaf out on the desk, and Marie-Claude, reading the patients’ names from the other side of the desk, began to pluck them from the pile.

  “Do you not think you are cured?” I asked. “There is not another woman in this hospital who could do what you are doing at the moment.”

  She paused for a moment, and looked at me. “Doctor, I would not want to be disrespectful,” she began. “I am grateful for your interest.” Her hands were still on the documents.

  “And? But?” I prodded.

  There was a long pause. She seemed to be formulating her response. After drawing a deep breath, she said, “I was going to tell you that you should not rely on a patient’s opinion. Yet there are times when we can judge our own condition. The difficulty is that we cannot tell the difference, we do not know when we are right and when we are wrong. And you, Doctor, can’t, either.”

  I sat up, excited. Marie-Claude was the patient we all looked for, the patient who was sufficiently lucid and educated to describe her state. Perhaps she could help me understand what it was like to be mad. I had my ideas, I thought I might know, certainly I was sympathetic. However, she was the one who could not walk from one building to another without a wardress, the one who slept in a row of a dozen beds and was watched even as she bathed.

  “But what does it feel like?” I asked, leaning toward her. “Can you remember? Do you recognize it?”

  She shook her head regretfully. “No. I cannot say that I do.” She looked back down at the papers, and plucked four more from the sheaf, placing them facedown in what I knew would be the correct order.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, suddenly overcome by a convulsion of conventional manners. One should not pursue a topic that made anyone uncomfortable. Marie-Claude seemed unwilling to discuss this matter further. But it was such a chance for me! “You have no way to describe the state? Or is it different each time?”

  “I don’t even know,” she answered, and went back to her work.

  I had pressed her too hard, it was clear. The next time I tried to borrow her from the workshop, the supervisor told me she could not be spared. She kept her eyes lowered the whole time I was in the room. I was terribly downcast.

  Yet that was not the great lesson I learned from Marie-Claude, if indeed I could glean anything from this puzzling encounter. It was a few weeks later that I saw her again. We externs were required to be on duty several nights a month. The senior medical staff went home at night, naturally, but a doctor had to be available in case of a crisis. We slept in a kind of annex not far from the women’s dormitories, and the nights were normally uneventful. On this occasion, however, I was roused well after midnight by an orderly with a lantern that looked as if it had been left behind some time before the Revolution.

  “Doctor,” he whispered, though we were alone in the room. “You’re needed.”

  I sat up and ran a hand through my hair. It took me a long minute to understand where I was. “Yes, I’m coming,” I said, feeling beneath my cot for my boots. I thought about leaving my coat hanging on the chair where I had left it: It was still a hot night. Reluctantly, I shrugged it on. If I were to be the doctor, I must look like the doctor. I picked up my medical bag as well, having no idea what I might do with it.

  I was apprehensive, I will admit. This was my first midnight call, and I did not know what to expect. As the orderly led me to the ward, I listened for disturbance, but there was none—merely our footsteps, treading quickly down the long stone corridors. “Here we are,” he said, finally, turning a corner.

  I was surprised. There was no crisis. We were at the door of the principal dormitory of Falret’s division, where the most capable women were assigned. The two women at the door were the wardress, a capable woman known as Madame Boguet, and Marie-Claude. They stood side by side, apparently awaiting my intervention. They were not speaking. I looked for recognition in Marie-Claude’s expression, thinking that my presence might reassure her. There was none.

  The orderly turned and took his ancient lantern down another corridor, while Madame Boguet began to explain the situation in a whisper. That must have been why the orderly did not speak aloud to me; he had carried his whispered instructions the length of the building and delivered them as he received them.

  “Marie-Claude is unwell,” she said. She glanced at our patient in an unfriendly way. “She claims she needs to be confined in a gilet de force. You know that I need the approval of a doctor for this, and she insisted that you be roused. So here we are. In the middle of the night. With two dozen women awake on the other side of this door, and a fine time we’ll have settling them down!”

  I glanced around. It seemed to me that my first step should be to separate Marie-Claude from this forceful and angry woman. I would have liked to find a little room where we could speak calmly. The corridor, of course, was dark as pitch, and Madame Boguet had the only lantern. There was a window a few meters away, a deep indentation in the thick walls, through which the hazy moonlight seeped.

  “May I speak to Marie-Claude?” I asked Madame Boguet. “I would like to step over to that window, so that we might not further disturb your patients.”

  She looked at the window, at me, at Marie-Claude, then nodded. “I must check on them. I will come out in a few moments,” she said and whisked herself through the heavy oak door to the dormitory. I took Marie-Claude by the elbow and led her to the window, positioning her so that the light fell on her face. It was not much help. Her expression was closed.

  “Can you tell me,
Marie-Claude, why you want the gilet?” I asked. I hated to see the women bundled into those coarse strappings of canvas, shuffling along with their balance impaired, lost without the use of their hands. I saw it as a punishment, and a return to the old days of chains. Surely we had made progress beyond this.

  She took a deep breath, but it was not steady, and she closed her eyes. Then she shook her head.

  “Are you hearing voices?”

  Another shake of the head. I stood still for a moment. I could not think what to do. “May I take your pulse?” I finally asked, thinking that I might receive some information in that way. She did not answer but did not object when I took hold of her wrist. Her pulse was fast, but not alarming. I considered taking out my stethoscope—I was grasping at straws—but Madame Boguet came shuffling out of the dormitory, closing the door behind her.

  “Well, Doctor,” she hissed, approaching us. “Will you put Marie-Claude in the jacket?”

  “Can you tell me something more of the circumstances?” I asked. “Has Marie-Claude felt unwell before today? Is there … has she been weak, or had headaches?”

  Madame Boguet looked at me with manifest impatience. “Marie-Claude is a lunatic, Doctor, like the rest of the women here. There is no telling, ever, what any of them will do. When we find a patient sensible enough to ask for constraint, normally we put her in the jacket. I don’t hold with the doctors interfering, we do very well on our own and we know what’s what. Marie-Claude is a good girl, but she’s done some harm in her bad moments.” Here she put a reassuring hand on the patient’s arm. I found this confusing.

  Who was right? I was the doctor. I was the one with the training, the seven years of medical school. I was the one wearing the black coat and carrying the bag full of diagnostic tools. The wardress, it seemed to me, was harsh. She could know nothing of what we doctors were trying to achieve. Yet her comforting touch told me she had Marie-Claude’s well-being at heart.

  Clearly, there would be no help from Marie-Claude herself. If anything, she seemed to have withdrawn further.

  It seemed so wrong. The gilet was humiliating. Nevertheless, the patient had requested it. I had regarded her as practically sane, even ready for freedom, but now she wanted to be confined. She had warned me of precisely this turn of events; that even she could not judge her own condition.

  And yet where was the harm in granting her wishes? I could feel my mind changing. If I granted Marie-Claude’s request, threaded her arms through the long sleeves, tied the knots up her back—what then? She would sleep poorly, perhaps. If I denied the request, the risk was much greater—Marie-Claude might rise from her bed and attack one of the other patients. Her records proved the potential for violence; she had once come close to throttling a woman much larger than she.

  So I gave in. I agreed that Marie-Claude should spend the night confined, and further ordered a series of cold baths over the next few days. Many women found that these restored them to normalcy. I returned to my cot and lay down with my boots on, running over the sequence of events in my mind. I should have stood firm, I thought. I had submitted to the authority of a madwoman and an uneducated wardress who, for all I knew, had done her own time as a patient. Could they possibly know more than I, the physician?

  Nine

  THE NEXT DAY BEGAN peacefully enough. My daughter was under the housekeeper’s eye: Madame Chevalier set Marguerite to the task of checking over all the fruit preserves and washing the empty jars, in preparation for the next batch. I proposed that Paul help me organize the studio; I had recently brought a substantial order of paints and supplies down from Paris, and the space is so small that everything must be carefully stowed, as on a boat. I thought if Paul’s enthusiasm for art persisted, we might need to store the paintings on the second floor to give us more space to work.

  But Paul was surly that morning, careless and inattentive. He took little interest in my suggestions. He picked things up and put them down aimlessly, he tossed brushes into a drawer, all jumbled. I asked him to show me what he had done that week, and he told me he had destroyed all of his drawings.

  “They were useless,” he said, looking out the window.

  “Nothing is useless if you learn from it,” I told him. “Would you like to sketch in the garden after luncheon?”

  “What use is sketching, anyway? Vincent never sketches.”

  “Drawing is the foundation of painting,” I instructed. “If you do not draw …” I had to pause to consider my argument. Paul was right, in a way: Vincent rarely used drawing to prepare a canvas. “Drawing helps you understand what things really look like,” I said slowly, as I attempted to make my thoughts clear. “Vincent draws all the time, you’ve seen his notebook. There is a difference between the way we know things to be and the way they appear to the eye. And of course,” I added, on surer ground, “artists make sketches to plan canvases. You remember that Vincent did that for his portrait of Marguerite.”

  “But usually he just heaps paint onto the canvas,” Paul countered. “And you think he is brilliant.”

  I looked at Paul’s slightly rigid back. He had found something on the windowsill to occupy his hands, a leaf blown in from the garden perhaps. “Yes,” I said. “The way Vincent paints is unusual, but he is brilliant.” There was silence. I turned back to the box of paints I was transferring to drawers.

  “Anyway I don’t want to draw today, Papa,” Paul said. “I’m going to fish.”

  “Now?” I replied, surprised. It was a bright, hot morning, the kind of weather that drives fish deep into the cool, silty depths of the Oise.

  Paul only shrugged and left the studio. My thoughts that morning were not pleasant. I had a heavy feeling, a sense of something ominous but unnamed. The house in Auvers had always been a refuge for me, but now it seemed full of worry.

  We were very quiet at the luncheon table that day, each occupied by his or her own thoughts. I half-expected to hear the bell ring, and Vincent to appear with a blank canvas and his portable easel, but he did not come, which added to my unease. Even the dogs, whose behavior at mealtimes could be intrusive, had dispersed to shady corners. Only Nero barked from time to time, in a hoarse series of cries, then left off. Finally, as she got up to clear the salad plates, Marguerite broke the silence to say, “Paul, what is the matter with Nero?”

  “Nothing,” Paul said, looking down at his plate. “He got wet down at the river, and I tied him up so he wouldn’t disturb us at the table.”

  “Well, he must have dried off by now, it’s so hot,” said Madame Chevalier. “Why don’t you go untie him? The noise is unpleasant.”

  “No, he got some slime on him,” Paul said. “He smells terrible. I was going to wash him after we finished.”

  At that moment, though, the dog revealed him to be a liar. Nero had somehow slipped free from his tether and came galloping up to the table, barking with joy at every bound. We all turned to look at him and, as one, stood up, ready to escape. Nero was of an indeterminate breed, though I always thought Newfoundland predominated. He was large and black, shaggy and irrepressible. I found his boundless affection endearing, but the women complained about his size, his exuberance, and the impossibility of controlling him. Paul, who was fifteen the summer Nero joined us, worked hard to civilize him and was the only member of the family who could exert any influence on his behavior.

  But Paul’s influence had evidently failed in the recent past, for Nero’s coat was matted with paint. It was mostly yellow, with areas of dark blue and green and flecks of white clumped in streaks and blobs on his side. There were smears on his muzzle, as if he had made an attempt to lick off the colors. The tip of his joyously wagging tail was frosted with orange. On top of it all, he was wet and smelled of turpentine.

  In a flash I understood the reasons for both Vincent’s absence and Paul’s strange behavior that morning. I could imagine it now: Paul, importunate, tracking Vincent around Auvers. Vincent, unhappy at the interruption, the dog creating havoc. How coul
d Paul have been so stupid?

  Paul froze for a moment, but before Nero could reach us, he leapt from the table and planted himself a few feet away. “Sit!” he commanded. Nero obeyed, tail thumping the ground. “Stay,” Paul added. “Marguerite,” he said, using the same tone of command, “go get the rope, would you? It’s tied near Henriette.”

  Marguerite, leaving a wide berth around the dog, trotted off toward the far end of the garden, where the goat’s bell clanked behind the trees. The rest of us stood still, unwilling to attract Nero’s attention and an affectionate, paint-streaked canine embrace. In a minute Marguerite returned, rope in hand. She flung it to Paul, who fashioned a kind of collar that he slipped over the dog’s head. The tail wagging instantly ceased, and Nero lowered his forequarters to the ground. Paul looked at him and sighed. He did not even glance toward me, but seemed quite frozen, as if braced for a flurry of blows or a tirade. His shame and fear cooled my anger.

  “Paul and I will chance drinking our coffee out here,” I told Madame Chevalier. “If you and Marguerite wish to protect your dresses, you should stay indoors.”

  “I should think so,” Madame Chevalier agreed, picking up the wine carafe and the water pitcher. “We’ll just be a moment, Doctor. Shall I get you an old blanket? Your smock?”

  “Yes, what a good idea.” I turned to my daughter. “Marguerite, would you go up to the studio to see what you can find to protect Paul and me from Nero’s paint?”