The Green Muse

by Jessie Prichard Hunter

  Cousin Bette. “Yes,” I breathed.

  “That shall be returned as well, and when you feel the need to read another you need only notify one of the attendants. Certainly I cannot let you read whatever you choose. I strongly suspect that you have been reading books most unsuitable to a young girl.”

  I blushed to the roots of my hair.

  “I thought as much. Well, after dinner you will find your belongings restored to you in your room. But you must not speak of this to any of the other girls. And we will meet again, Augustine, every few days. There are aspects of your hysterical attacks I want you to learn to understand. Thoroughly understand.”

  And that was all. When I left, the doctor was staring at one of the black walls. I suppose they helped him think. I prefer to dream into a meadow view, but of course Dr. Charcot does not dream. But I knew I had done something right and that Adelaide had been quite correct. I did not know exactly what I was headed for, and I was afraid, but at the same time there was an agitation in my belly that did not feel like a symptom of anything but excitement.

  Chapter 30

  Charles

  V HAS ACQUIRED the most peculiar houseguest. I had no warning. One day Odette was simply there, like furniture. She settled herself so quickly into our home and routine that I was astonished; but then, Odette was quite simply astonishing.

  She was very tall. She was as dark as V was fair, rich of breast and hip. Her eyes were dark blue, large and searching, and a great many things made her laugh. She had a hideous laugh. V said she was a childhood friend; Odette said she was the Countess Odette Alexandrovna, but that her husband had died; and she laughed.

  She lounged around the apartment all day in Chinese dishabille: silk dresses in the Chinese style without so much as a corset underneath, soft Chinese slippers on her feet; and I had seen her go out dressed like this with only a shawl to cover herself. I didn’t know where she went at night; often she came back as late as next morning, kohl smudged below her eyes and her hair wild, as if she’d spent time in a storm.

  One afternoon when V had gone to her dressmaker’s I sat and watched Odette put on her makeup as I prepared myself a glass of absinthe. She had draped V’s red silk scarf over the shade of the lamp that sat on the vanity; I took secret pleasure that just days ago I had held that scarf tight around V’s neck in my fist while taking my pleasure with her. Odette was applying ambergris around her eyes as she smoked one of her small Egyptian cigarettes, which she always put in a long ivory holder. She spoke with a drawl acquired, V had told me, from time spent in New Orleans. Apparently she had gone to school in Switzerland with V and traveled a great deal. Since she spoke of nothing but herself it was difficult to gauge her education.

  “Charles,” she said, looking at me in the mirror with smoky eyes, “you know I live for pleasure. I choose to live without restraint, giving my whole heart and soul without thought of consequences.” Odette was given to such soliloquies when she had been smoking her cigarettes, which, laced with opium, left a pleasant smell in the blue smoke that lay in layers about the vanity. “I have spoken of my Drago.”

  And indeed she had, in exhaustive detail: I was thoroughly tired of hearing about him.

  “That I love Drago in this way is proof of my superiority.” She laughed. “You will not say it, and V will not say it, but I have pledges to drink to the dregs of my carnal soul.”

  I handled the familiar, soothing items of my ritual, the slotted odalisque spoon, my sugar tongs.

  “This Italian of yours, Drago, when does he arrive?”

  “Oh,” she said casually, “he does as he pleases.” She reached to take the silver tongs from my hand, and the ruby locket she wore dangling from her bracelet made a pretty sound against the metal. I resisted her fingers and took the sugar cubes from the pot, busying myself with the ancient, almost animal motions of preparing my drink. When I am readying a glass of absinthe I do not think of anything else.

  “I do not know when he will come,” she said; she was not rebuffed. “You will appreciate him, Charles. He is a man much like yourself. He has promised to send me a grand piano. He told me that as a gesture of his feelings for me, he could think of no more appropriate gesture.”

  I was thoroughly tired of Drago and his piano. How was he to get a grand piano from Italy to France? Before I could say anything, however, Odette laughed and said, “It will be here soon. Perhaps I will have it sent to V’s apartment.” The sugar tumbled into the lap of the spoon. Odette’s locket swung without a sound.

  She knew about the apartment.

  Her eyelids had already begun to droop, the ambergris had already begun to run. She applied more with fingers made clumsy by the opium in her cigarette, and I saw dirt under the fingernails of her mannish hands. I watched the absinthe fall out of its bottle; I poured somewhat more than my usual measure. The sick-­sweet smell of opium clung to her hair, as full and lustrous as the hair itself, which hung in a dark cloud around her shoulders. Her blue eyes were sunken and fevered, and the smudge of her makeup made her white skin even whiter; already it was beginning to be mapped by tiny lines: Someday she would be parchment.

  Her lips were almost bloodless. She roused herself and dipped a finger into her china rouge pot, she smoothed red enamel across her bottom lip. She casually picked up a small red-­leather book and opened to a well-­worn page:

  I am the wound and the knife!

  I am the slap and the cheek!

  I am the limbs and the rack,

  And the victim and the executioner!

  I am the vampire of my own heart.

  “Isn’t that how you feel about V, Charles? You want to mingle your blood with hers, you want to be her.”

  “We are man and wife,” I answered softly. “We are commingled already.”

  “Oh, Charles.” She laughed, turning her face away and revealing her white, white throat. She put down her book and picked up a sinuous nude mirror from the table at her side. “It is by others’ blood that you are linked. Tell me, have you ever tasted blood?”

  So V had told her of our killings after all. But I was not discomfited; I was proud that Odette knew. Had I ever tasted blood? I thought of boyhood scratches, a cut finger put in my mouth, a sudden scratch from a wayward branch soothed with my own saliva; I thought of the rivulets of blood streaming down V’s arms as she lay in our bed, and how they had seemed to be rose petals drifting from the bed to the floor.

  “Yes,” I said shortly. “V’s blood.”

  “What a clever girl V is. Did she pinch the same spot on her throat she pricked for the marquis, I wonder.” She laughed again.

  The tiny pucker of white on V’s neck, the one she said she had no memory of: I suppose I was wounded climbing a tree as a child, or some other foolish thing. And I remember being unable to envision V doing anything so mundane as climbing a tree, even as a child. Surely,servants would have carried her, fairies would have lifted her, preventing any injury.

  “You are lying,” I said coldly. I hated my hands for shaking as I mixed my drink.

  Odette could not stop laughing. “You’re as much a fool as any of the others,” she said, and went back to admiring herself in the glass. I drank. This time the green did not soothe: It excited.

  “V has loved no one but me,” I said fiercely.

  “V,” Odette said serenely, “does not love. You’re convenient, Charles, so very convenient! The lifestyle to which she has accustomed herself, sexual pleasures of the most degraded sort. Don’t think she hasn’t told me about those. And”—­casually picking up her cigarette pipe and and fitting it carefully into its long ivory holder—­“V likes to kill. Surely that is not so difficult for you to understand.

  “There was a game we played at school,” she went on, apparently unconcerned at how quickly I mixed my next drink, by my now-­ragged breathing. “The Empress’s Children. It was a silly game
. One of us was chosen by lots to be the Empress. There was a hill, and a big rock, a boulder, really, sitting atop that hill. It served as the Empress’s throne. And all the others had to obey the Empress for the entire afternoon. We tended her flocks, we brushed her hair and did her toilette, we gave her fantastical gifts of frankincense and cloth of gold, which we found as berries and stones and hay at the bottom of the hill.

  “And then one day a girl, a shy little thing, took a twig and pretended to stab the Empress in the back and proclaimed, Now I am the Empress. And so we obeyed her. It went on that way for a few weeks: One day a girl served the Empress a tea of leaves and berries and declared that she had poisoned her and would take her place. The Empress died a sufficiently dramatic and horrible death, and it became our goal to kill each Empress. Quite often we were found out: I will not use this pen! one would cry out, flinging a twig away from her. The ink is acid! We did all sorts of silly things, of course, and it was innocent. But V had always hated the game. When she was a servant there was one girl in particular who would humiliate her with chores: Muck out the stables, she would declare, and would not be content until V had muddied her own skirt. Serve me my supper, and be quick about it! and the dish of nuts and berries would be thrown at her feet lest it be poisoned. And yet V would never have resorted to poisoning.

  “And then one day this girl, this Empress, threw a brush toward V, demanding she dress her hair. It was just a twig, but it hit V on the cheek. She stood still; the twig had left an angry mark. She did not bring her hand to her face. The Empress smiled; V said, You will die for that. Immediately she was ordered out of the Empress’s sight. She stood a moment longer, then walked right up to the girl and shoved her, hard, off her boulder throne ; the girl fell with a sickening sound, rolled down the hill, and lay still. V looked at her a long time, then walked over and knelt to feel her pulse. The rest of us were frozen with fear. But V simply stood up, shook out her skirts, and said, I am Empress now.”

  My hands had stopped shaking. The lovely, imperious child who would take her right to be Empress, that was without doubt my V.

  “Do you know what happened after that, Charles?” Odette did not wait for me to answer. “After that, every day we continued to play the game. And every day V was the Empress, and we were her children.”

  Odette took a long drag on her pipe. I took another green drink.

  “She is still the Empress,” Odette said eventually. Her voice was faint, her eyes already halfway to a dream. “V is still the Empress, and we are all nothing but her children.”

  Chapter 31

  Edouard

  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 w
as 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.