The Green Muse

by Jessie Prichard Hunter

  Adelaide, as you know, was an extremely sensitive girl. She read a great many romantic novels and kept a voluminous diary that she let no one read. She wrote poetry, and had hopes of one day being a published writer. None of these things is in itself dangerous, but the combination proved an insidious erosion to her health. She won a poetry contest, and one of her poems was printed in the women’s section of a local newspaper. She began a correspondence with a young man who claimed to have been smitten with her poetry and, hence, with her. She felt that she was at last living the exotic life her romantic novels had led her to believe was possible for young ladies of her station. She fed her imagination with unrealistic dreams, and when the time came to fulfill them her woman’s nature was not strong enough to bear the weight of their reality. She grew pale, and her skin took on a greenish hue. She became temperamental. She argued with her parents.

  Her parents took her to a local doctor, who diagnosed green disease. This is a very dangerous thing, Natalie, and very common in girls your age. Thank heavens you have good common sense and a natural love of the domestic arts! Books are dangerous things in the hands of women; it has been proven so time and time again. You will make some man a good wife, dear sister, as you make me a good confidant.

  But back to Adelaide. (I know how often you have chided me for making a point when I should be telling a story.)

  Her parents were at their wits’ end. The girl spent a great deal of her day crying in her room. The correspondence with the young man was terminated, of course, as well as the poetry writing, and the diary had been confiscated. Oh, the horrors the mother found in that diary! The impieties, the ungrateful spitefulness! Apparently Adelaide and the young man had actually met! She stole out from under her mother’s eye to go to him on the train. It was to have been accomplished again within the month; it is by the grace of God that the mother found out in time.

  Her attitude toward her mother became more and more defiant, her moods more and more despondent. At last she attempted suicide, using her mother’s laudanum, and her parents were left with no choice. I was very friendly with her older brother, as you remember, so I was privy to the details of this sordid story.

  At any rate, it turns out that Adelaide is now confined in the very Hôpital Salpêtrière at which Richet works. He does not know this; at any rate I did not ask him. I do not know if she is still there, as this was some two years ago. She may well be; it was a difficult case.

  Upon confinement Adelaide was given the water treatment; that is, she was strapped into a specialized tub and had water in varying temperatures dripped or poured over her as was deemed necessary. This cure has proven very effective in cases of green disease, which is really simple hysteria in the young woman. Of course she was kept very quiet, in complete solitude, as is best for a woman, except for her hydrotherapy treatments and daily exercise walks in the courtyard; when a man suffers from a depressed state it is appropriate for him to be kept busy, to be encouraged to spend a great deal of time outdoors, to engage in athletics. A woman, on the other hand, is to be kept as still as possible, with little stimulation from visitors and no distractions such as books or letters.

  I have told you about the details of Adelaide’s case because the subject has direct bearing both on my conversation with Richet and the extraordinary opportunity that has become open to me because of it.

  He and I retired to a café a few blocks from the Morgue, as we had tired of the crowd. We ordered luncheon, and Richet told me of his latest work. When I first met him, he was working as a portrait photographer, mostly for young society girls. The work paid well, but it was not stimulating enough for a man of Richet’s sensibilities. He is a poet as well as a photographer, a collector of rare wines and Oriental sculpture. He was languishing in his day-­to-­day existence; there is only so long a man can tolerate a routine that goes against the grain of his natural proclivities.

  And then one day he attended a lecture by the great Dr. Jean-­Martin Charcot. Dr. Charcot is something of a legend here in Paris, Natalie, I could almost say something of a god. La Salpêtrière, as you know, is the famous women’s mental sanitarium founded by Louis XIV on the former site of a gunpowder factory. For many years it housed beggars, petty criminals, and prostitutes as well as the mentally ill. In our century it became solely an asylum for the insane. Although some real improvements were made to lessen the horrors of life there, when Dr. Charcot became its director, in 1863, it was still a sinkhole of madness, a desperate place. Women roamed the courtyards dressed in tattered clothing and received no treatment. Here was no effort to cure the insane, only to house them, albeit in better conditions than those to which they had formerly been accustomed.

  Dr. Charcot changed all that. He is a neurologist, that is, a physician of the brain, and he knows more about the ills of the human spirit than anyone else on earth. His particular passion is to find and understand the physical causes of hysteria, in men as well as women. He is doing great work in the world: He is working to prove that hysteria is caused not merely by circumstance and emotional disposition but by actual physical lesions on the brain.

  I have heard a great deal about Dr. Charcot’s hysterics. At his Tuesday afternoon lectures women are brought forward, women who are strangers to him. He puts them into an hypnotic state, at which time he watches them perform certain acts of hysteria, certain reenactments of the hysterical story, as it were. Richet is one of the photographers who records these sessions, and the glorious news, Natalie, is that another photographer is needed, and my friend is quite willing to put forth my name to the great doctor himself! He assures me there will be no objection, that his recommendation will be enough to assure me the position. Oh, Natalie, think of the opportunity! I who have photographed the dead, the dying, and the vainly self-­aware, am to have the opportunity to photograph a new subject, Life itself, as it were, as it has never been seen before. And I will be able to quit my work at the tintype studio.

  I will let you know when my assignment starts. Until then, dear sister, keep up your studies, and keep sending me the lovely little things you knit. And don’t forget you promised me a violet ribbon from your hair that I may carry in my wallet, close to my heart.

  Your affectionate brother,

  Edouard

  Chapter 11

  From the Journal of Augustine Dechelette

  THE CLOCK AT the train station, which runs on Parisian time, runs a full twenty-­eight minutes faster than the clock in the old church steeple. My father could not stop looking at it. I stood, my handkerchief soaked with tears, in my best dress, going to Paris at last. My father had placed us some twenty feet down the station platform from the clock, but he kept walking over to it, his hands folded behind his back, his neck thrust forward and tensed, as though the clock might in fact be alive, and strike.

  My best dress: rose-­colored, with an ivory overskirt. Ivory lace at the neck and sleeves that my mother had tatted for me. Wine-­colored ribbons in the shape of roses hitching up the overskirt, which hung in lazy arcs that swirled gently around my legs as I walked. The same ribbons all up the front of the bodice. Just the right puff at the shoulders of the sleeves. I had been so proud of this dress. My six petticoats frothed out at the bottom like new milk. I had thought of how I would feel standing in this dress on the train platform the day I left for Paris.

  I had a brand-­new travel bag at my feet, calf’s leather with a pocket for my journal. The pocket was empty. I write now on a journal that has been given to me, out of kindness or routine I do not know.

  My mother took my diaries, and I have not seen them since. Are they burned, with the dried poppy Louis gave me in the meadow that day, the postcard of the Eiffel Tower on which he wrote those sweet words? I hope it is all burned, after my mother defiled it with her eyes. I burn with shame at the thought of her reading what was meant only for my eyes; I have some consolation in knowing that she will never know which passages of
my journal I read aloud to Louis; which fragments of poetry I wrote down that he read back to me, one hand in my hair as I sat at his feet in the room behind the store. These things remain for me unsullied. Unlike paper and ink, they can never be destroyed.

  My father paced, eyeing the clock, which stood on a cement pedestal. My mother stood near me, making small awkward movements with her hands. She wanted to comfort me but did not dare; I had become a stranger to her. They would not tell me why we were going to Paris. I did not care. Everything that had meant anything to me had been taken away: I held my few pitiful jewels in my hands and protested that my treasure was still intact, but my jewels only sparkle in the dark; my mother had dragged them out into her harsh drawing-­room light, where they looked cheap, plaster and sequins only, with nothing precious about them, things a trollop would wear.

  The train was due in at 12:10. By 11:50 my father was in a kind of hypnotic agitation. He could not keep his eyes from the station clock; my mother picked up my bag and suggested we go to him. There were other ­people on the platform, and I could not help but feel that they must see my shame surrounding me like a shadow. In my good dress I felt conspicuously unclean, although my mother had fussed endlessly to get every detail just right, ironing for an hour before putting the dress on me and examining it from every angle while I stood like a wooden doll.

  I had had nothing to say for a week. I had had little to eat or drink. I had cried upon awakening, lay in my bed and cried through the day, and gone to bed weeping. My mother had tried to speak to me but I could not bear it, I screamed at her and threw a book.

  And then two days ago she told me that today we were to go to Paris, and that I must ready myself. I did not know what to think. I had thought almost nothing for the entire week, except that my Louis was gone from me forever and that I had done nothing wrong. What I do with my body is supposed to mean so much—­only what he did to my body ever meant anything. A kiss, a touch only: a heaven.

  But my thoughts, my dreams! To be defiled that way was like an undressing, was like being touched with a stranger’s dirty hands. The pain was physical, it still was, on the station platform, an ache in the hollow under my ribs, a pain that ran straight through my body like the trail left by a knife.

  This was to be my dream, then. Waiting for a train to take my to my fairy-­tale city as a captive, with no idea why or where, and no right to ask. Clearly I had forfeited my rights as a person when my mother walked into my room. I know I committed a sin, but it did not feel like a sin; it felt like the only way I could touch Louis’ flesh.

  My mother looked at me with fear and contempt, as she had been looking at me for a week, and the train came.

  I hardly glanced out the window. I remember nothing of the scenery. Father talked about clocks until my teeth were on edge. Mother looked at me until I said something snappish, then I was sorry. That is all I remember.

  And then we were there. Here. A long, long row of trees, an imposing tall façade. I did not understand. The Hôpital Salpêtrière.

  I had heard of it, of course. A place for madwomen. The very finest, I heard my mother telling me. I wanted to run away, but I could not stop my feet from walking obediently beside my mother’s. She held my arm and I hated her; but I knew that from now on to show anger would be to show madness. I have effaced myself in order to survive.

  I felt dwarfed by my surroundings; I felt myself shrinking. Once inside, I could not adjust my eyes to the light. I could not accept the laughter I heard echoing around the great empty front lobby. Perfectly ordinary laughter, no doubt from the throat of someone insane.

  Somebody came. We were ushered into a room. I looked out the window, which gave onto a back garden. It was empty. Somebody came. He asked questions of my parents and ignored me completely.

  The entire time, I heard that laughter. Eventually it seemed to be coming from inside my own head; I wanted to ask if anyone else heard it, to scream. And then it was gone, as if it had never been.

  Suddenly everyone was on his feet. My mother was crying. My father held me awkwardly. My mother held me fiercely and whispered something that sounded absurdly like toiletry advice in my ear, something about flesh worms; I recoiled. And then they were gone.

  “I am Dr. Duret,” said the man who remained. He stood up at his desk. I stood and curtsied; momentarily I did feel as though I was insane because this could not be happening to me, I could not have been abandoned here.

  “Sit down,” the man said. He did not say my name. I could not think of his. I sat. I was trembling, my hands, my knees. I was afraid he would see it. I knew he would see it. I looked him straight in the eye.

  “You are suffering from green disease,” he said authoritatively. He started to go through the symptoms quite thoroughly, noting down the ones I apparently have: Yellowish, green, or blue hue to the skin. Hmmm. I would say there is a definite green pallor; now, let me see, open your mouth, yes, it is quite visible in the gums, although not so much in the lips. Now”—­quite suddenly pulling down my lower eyelid—­ “yes, there is a white here rather than a healthy pink tone.

  “Have you lassitude? Your father says you do.”

  “My father? What else does he say?”

  “He had not noticed any weakness in the legs; he says you walk a great deal.”

  “Yes.” I was terrified that the doctor was just waiting to confront me with my self-­abuse.

  “You are somewhat slim for a farm girl,” he continued.

  “I am not a—­ ”

  “And you have complained of pains in the head.”

  “Yes.” I could feel myself getting smaller in my chair. “I have a—­a sound in my head sometimes.”

  “What sort of sound?” He seemed unsurprised.

  “A wheezing sound.”

  “Ah.”

  I knew I had pleased him.

  “I hear it in the silence of the night; I think it is the strangled beating of my heart.”

  “Have you any feelings of oppression?”

  Oh, I almost laughed then. As I sat in that chair getting smaller and smaller I could feel the entire oppressive weight of the hospital on my poor aching head. Quite soon I would be the size of a mouse!

  “Since my arrival here,” I said.

  He wrote again in his notebook, and then we sat in silence for another little while.

  “Your father,” he said finally, as though surfacing from some great depth, “says that your disposition for intellectual work is very good.”

  “Well,” I said, not knowing the correct answer to this, “we like to talk in the evenings.”

  “It will be good for you that all such discussions will be suspended while you are here.

  “Dr. Charcot has authorized me to give this to you.” He pushed a small journal toward me across his desk. I had noticed it the moment I sat down: a black journal with hard cardboard for front and back. I had been eyeing it with something like lust the entire interview! I could not believe that it was now mine.

  I burst out, “Why?”

  “The doctor feels it will be beneficial,” was all he said, and I found myself thinking, To whom?

  “I have called for an orderly,” he said. “He will familiarize you with the routines of your rehabilitation.”

  He turned and looked out the window. I did not know what to do. I had thought I was going to be given a chance to defend myself. Instead I heard footsteps coming. They started as a far-­off rhythm, then became a tapping that turned loud as a drumbeat in my head. Somewhere the laughing started again. I wanted to throw myself on the mercy of the man in front of me, but I still could not remember his name. I felt like the condemned listening to the executioner’s footsteps. Then another man was standing in the doorway, and I said to the doctor, “Is that all you have to say to me?”

  “Guillaume will tell you all you need to know.”

/>   “Am I to have nothing to say for myself, then?”

  When the orderly took my arm I dared not shake it off.

  “Young woman,” said the doctor, turning around, “I am familiar with the particulars of your case. If you follow the excellent regimen Dr. Charcot has set up for his patients, you will almost certainly make a full recovery. It is not too late for you to be made fit for your future duties as mother and wife.” With that he turned back toward the window, and the orderly took a more firm grip on my arm. There was a noise in the hall. As we came out the door I saw an older woman, perhaps thirty, being walked down the hall by a male attendant. The woman was talking to the attendant; she smiled quite naturally at me as she passed. Was this the woman who had been laughing? It felt wrong to have a strange man holding my arm. He hadn’t said anything but to greet the other attendant, though not, I had noticed, his patient.

  The halls were an interminable labyrinth. Again it became difficult not to laugh at myself, waiting for the Minotaur.