The Green Muse (17 page)

 

Dearest Natalie,

I hope the summer weather has not caused your pretty hair to frizz; I would have far more serious hopes for you, little sister, if I did not know that this is the foremost worry of your summer season: I have in my memory the most charming picture of your lovely vexed face and the curling iron you so hate and have named what is it? —­Sebastian, I believe. Yes, Sebastian the curling iron that can never quite do the job. How many times have I seen your mouth screwed up in the effort of inducing Sebastian to change what Nature has determined to be the perfect frame for your lovely countenance! Isn't it enough for a girl to have a fringe without feeling the need to crimp the thing?

But Natalie, can you tell that I am happy today? It is a perfect evening in Paris, and before I tell you the cause of my happiness I will describe to you the scene out of my window, bringing to life as best I can the ebb and flow of humanity that passes beneath.

It is just before the dinner hour, so even my little side street is busy, with young workmen taking their girls out for a night on the town. The hats alone are almost beyond my meager descriptive abilities! They pop with red and yellow silk roses, they sport black ribbons, they come in velvet and straw weave and structured silk. I can discern no particular predominating style; even the women's sleeves seem not to know whether to simply poof out at the top or billow out to the elbow. And the colors! Lavender and yellow, gray and russet, green and orange—­it seems that almost any combination of colors can be made beautiful if worn by a pretty woman.

And all the women are pretty today, although few, I must say, as pretty as you. But you persist in not believing me about your beauty, I know that, and what young girl would believe her big brother about such things?

Now, the reason for my happiness. You will think me shallow beyond measure, Natalie, when you find that a simple invitation to a party can make a fool of me. But I have been invited to my very first society gathering in Paris. It seems like a major step to me, for who would ever bother about a young photographer with no connections? I have not confided this to you, but describing the street scenes to you, and the petty gossip I hear about this or that great star, is as pleasurable to me as it is to you. Now you know: Your wise big brother is as much a nincompoop as any boy in the village. But now that I work at La Salpêtrière, my fortunes seem to have changed.

I will tell you the story.

I was gathering up my photographic equipment after one of Dr. Charcot's public Tuesday lectures when I was approached by a most curious woman. I shall try to describe her truly, and probably fail, because she is a most improbable personage. I heard her voice before I saw her: a deep voice, rasping.

“Pardon me,” she said.

I was startled: To begin with, she was as tall as I am, and that is a rarity among women. And her clothes! She wore a shawl (although it was quite pleasant out) of black lace that was tasseled at the hem; as we spoke she kept pulling at the ends of it, twirling them nervously and releasing, then grasping at them as though she was not sure whether she was cold or warm. Under the tattered shawl she wore an evening gown of the glossiest garnet silk and, mind you, this was afternoon. The gown was obviously very expensive, with a great deal of black lace embroidery on it that I find I cannot adequately describe, except to say that it all seemed, at any moment, about to start moving. Yet her feet were shod in shabby slippers of the Oriental type. They did not suit the dress at all; she did not suit the place.

“I am interested in photography,” she said. She was carrying a long, thin cigarette in an ornate ivory holder, and she gestured in such a way that I knew she expected me to light it.

“I do not smoke,” I said, somehow sad to disappoint her. Her aspect, you see, was itself so . . .
lost is the word that comes to mind. Her large blue eyes were framed with a great deal of kohl, which seemed to have been applied carelessly. Her dark chignon looked as if she had been out in the wind instead of attending a lecture. There was something wild about her, something untamed. Her mouth was uncertain, like a child's.

“I do not want to smoke it here,” she said, strangely. She looked around helplessly, and a very handsome ­couple came over. The man was very tall, and quite distinguished-­looking; I must confess I envied him his purple silk cravat, his shiny top hat, and his aplomb. His wife would delight you, Natalie. She was small, as you are small, but her hair was a very pale blonde and her eyes quite gray, which is very rare, as you know. She looked entirely as though she were made of porcelain. Her cheeks were apples, her hands graceful birds. She obviously had no need for that white powder you have told me about, made by Houbigant, called Poudre Ophelia.

She smiled at me, and I was struck that two women could be so utterly different; this one wore a brown satin dress with yellow silk peeking through soft plackets decorated with black fleurs-­de-­lis running down the front, and peeking again through wide slits in the sides of the dress.

“I am Madame Soulavie,” she said in a sweet, girlish voice, but her handshake was firm. “This is my husband.” He bowed. “And this,” she said, indicating the woman who had first approached me, “is Madame Alexandrovna.”

“Odette,” she said chidingly, but as one would chide a favored child. “Why are you bothering this gentleman when he is clearly working?”

I quickly assured them that it was quite all right, being very intrigued by the trio, and I introduced myself. The man's handshake was almost too strong, and I felt a strange disquiet when I looked into his dark eyes. Mme. Alexandrovna said, “Call me Odette,” and took my hand in such a way that I half expected I was to kiss it!

Natalie, I have never before met such ­people as these. Their exoticism was like an intoxicating drink, and although I know perfectly well that all ­people are equal in God's eyes and ought to be in ours, I am afraid that I was overwhelmed, to the extent that I did not quite gather why Mme. Alexandrovna had approached me and had to ask her to repeat herself.

“I like photography,” she said again, and I felt twice over a blockhead. “I would like to know a photographer,” she went on, and I must have looked as surprised as I felt, for Mme. Soulavie interjected, “Odette is a forthright person. She means no harm by it,” saving me embarrassment, as it gave me time to gather my wits.

“There is a party,” Odette went on as though she had not heard her friend. “ I would like you to come.”

I was dumbfounded, and again Mme. Soulavie rescued me.

“The man you work with, Monsieur Richet, is an acquaintance of ours,” she said to me gently. “He has spoken well of you. Odette is indeed interested in photography”—­with a little indulgent laugh—­“and Monsieur Richet says that you are an accomplished and entertaining man, and would be an asset to any party. So—­she gestured away my protestations—­“Madame Gaudet has asked me to extend an invitation. We did not have any address for you other than La Salpêtrière.

She opened the lovely clutch purse she carried, which looked like a seashell, and handed me a pure white sheet of engraved paper: an invitation.

Now, Natalie, I know you have heard of Mme. Gaudet—­you have even mentioned her to me. (Do not ever say again, Natalie, that your brother does not pay proper attention to you!) You have, in fact, regaled me with the doings of her famous Paris parties for years. And now I am to attend one of those parties! Are you proud of me? I know it is just an accident of place and time that has given me this opportunity, but it is an opportunity I am most anxious to grasp.

But I should first, perhaps, usher the Soulavies and Mme. Alexandrovna offstage. Odette seemed quite content to stare at my camera equipment, although she asked no questions. M. Soulavie stood strangely still; he seems to have the aspect of always waiting for something, and he watched his wife with an uncommon interest, although she did nothing out of the ordinary at all: She was politeness itself, and made just the proper kind of smalltalk with me before telling me yet again how pleased she was to have met me and how she hoped to see me at the party.

And then they took their leave, Odette giving me her hand once more, M. Soulavie simply nodding, and his wife smiling winsomely at me as she turned to go.

As I write it to you, my dearest sister, it strikes me as an altogether peculiar encounter. But what do I know of society? We have all heard that the very rich and privileged can be quite another species, and my impression being that Mme. Alexandrovna is titled Russian nobility, it would not be so strange at all that she is odd. As for the Soulavies, I know that you would love the wife and fear the husband. But perhaps he is just protective of his wife, who is, after all, so delicate of feature and aspect that perhaps I do not find it so very odd that she incites a fierce protectiveness in her husband.

But Natalie, I find myself vexed, and sorely so, with an as-­now-­unanswerable question: What am I to wear? Ah, well, the party is a full two weeks hence, and I think I can count on Richet to help me with any sartorial difficulties.

And I have a feeling, Natalie, that I will be receiving both sartorial and other advice from you, who know so much better, from reading the society pages, how to behave at a fancy-­dress ball than I do!

I look forward to your next letter, little sister.

Your affectionate brother,

Edouard

 

I
STOPPED, A
deer before the hunter's gun. The attendant tightened his grip on my arm ever so slightly: This was familiar to him. I was staring at the figure of Dr. Charcot in his long black coat, talking to a group of young men. They seem eager and starved, eating him with their eyes as they ate his words. This was the great Dr. Charcot, and they were feasting on his presence.

“Bear well in mind,” he was saying slowly, tasting his own words, “that the word
hysteria
means nothing.”

The attendant gave my arm a little tug. I could not breathe. Dr. Charcot turned his head, and the heads of the young men followed. If they saw me they might descend upon me like hungry animals, and I would be devoured.

But the doctor saw nothing: another patient, a young woman being led down the hall. He did not even recognize me. I did not exist.

The attendant loosened his grip; I exhaled, and was surprised that my breath did not come out as a gasp, a cry. My awareness of myself was acute. I felt my near-­silent feet on the floor, my still-­constricted throat, my dingy smock. I could hear Dr. Charcot's voice murmuring. For an instant everything looked wrong. The light in the hallway was wrong. The walls themselves seemed somehow wrong, as though suddenly set not quite at right angles. The fingers of the attendant, when I looked down, were almost grotesque in their chubby paleness, like coffin worms, and then I was simply Augustine, walking down the hall to my room.

The great and famous Dr. Charcot, who has diagnosed me in front of all Paris as an hysteric, says that the word
hysteria
means nothing. Nothing. I do not know what to make of it. Perhaps I misheard him; but I know I did not.

I want a mirror. I want to know if Augustine still exists. If Augustine now means nothing. What is this green disease if not desire? What is this hysteria if not the thwarting of desire? If I could have been with Louis, would I have ever have had to come here? I know I am depraved, yet I do not feel it. Am I so in thrall to the basest aspects of my womanly nature that I cannot even see my own rottenness? I am riddled through with moral depravity, yet I feel pure. How did love riddle me with its green poison?

I cannot pray. My mother prays for me even now, I suspect. Perhaps she sits now, fingering solid wooden prayers, whispering ancient words, tears on her cheeks.

The ink in this place is of a terrible quality. (I write this so as not to think of my mother.) It is a brown that looks faded even as it dries on the page, and its thickness clogs the nib of my pen. At home I used brown (although Papa used blue for his official correspondence), but it flowed evenly and shown on the page. And Louis once gave me a vial of the loveliest lavender ink, which I used only for my journal and kept hidden beneath the delicates in my hope chest lest Maman find it.

Perhaps she has discovered it by now. To Maman, lavender ink would surely be tangible evidence of moral depravity! That would hardly trouble me were I not certain she has read my journals by now. She and Papa would not let me take them with me. I buried them with the ink in the hope chest, and it is true that Maman is not the sort to snoop. But she is the sort to sit and go through the things in her daughter's hope chest and cry for what she feels will never be, now. And maybe she is right.

And yet I do not feel sorry for myself. There is a part of me that cannot believe, against all the logic my father taught me, against all moral teachings I have learned, against all decency, in fact, that I am truly ill. And yet this does not frighten me. I look out my little window and think: Beyond that wall, even though I cannot see it, Paris eats and breathes and sleeps. All Paris moves beyond my wall, out of my vision but seldom out of my thoughts. What should terrify me does not: Perhaps I am insane. Worse still, perhaps I am not, and yet I am trapped in this place. I may be trapped here the rest of my life. Yet as I write those words, I do not believe them. My father would never allow that. I heard him arguing with Maman:
All she needs is a change of scene
. My mother wept, of course, but resisted his will, I think for the first time in her life. My father does not think me mad, I am convinced of it.

Ah! I hear the key in the lock.