by Enrique Laso
Camille left her comfortable room and went back to the third-class wings where she had stayed on several occasions of her own free will. I remember the first time I went to visit her after she had been moved, which she had not been opposed to in the slightest.
-“Are you comfortable?” I asked, rather embarrassed.
-“I don't think you care much for my situation, so you can drop the pretence,” she replied coldly from her iron bed, one of many out of the line of bunks that had already started to line the female section.
-“Don't say that, Camille. I always wanted to provide you with the best care, and it would be very unfair of you not to admit it.”
-“Any day now my brother will come and take me out of this wretched place and he'll take me with him to China or Japan. I would so love to visit those countries. I've always been so happy abroad, so happy! I can remember vividly those beautiful Italian landscapes, or that gorgeous beach at Shanklin in England. Have you ever been there?”
-“No, Camille, I've never been there...” I replied, worn out with her incessant trust in Paul, who I utterly despised.
-“Well, you should go, the Isle of Wight is a truly wonderful place. I can remember it like it was only yesterday, isn't it odd? The past is coming back to me more and more clearly these days. Now the only thing I want to do is go back to Villeneuve and die in the village that I was born in and to be buried there.
-“I'll go and visit your village one day, if you'd like,” I said, almost relieved that Camille had stopped talking about her brother.
-“Oh, yes, yes I would love that! It would be marvelous to be able to show you all those places I knew as a little girl. You would love it.
I fluffed up her pillow from the side I was sat on, and I stood up to say goodbye, as I wanted to get back to my office and to leave the wing where Camille was just one of hundreds of other patients.
-“Alright, Camille, let's hope we can go on that trip together.”
-“And Doctor, don't worry about me, like I've told you before so many times, there's little difference between third-class and first in this asylum, at least I hardly notice it, and this way my family isn't robbed.”
I did not reply to these last words, biting my tongue as I left her bedside. Camille, in her naivety, which no one, even I, took it upon themselves to correct, carried on thinking that she had been placed back in third-class because her requests were finally receiving attention, like they used to be, rather than it being a measure imposed by lack of means to pay her expenses. This is how sad life was at Montdevergues. It has to be said that Camille's case was not unique, perhaps not even unusual, as it was quite common for families to wash their hands of patients not long after they were placed in confinement, especially when they realised it would be long-term. But in any case her situation was far more outrageous, the worst I have ever had to face.
My original intentions had been to decrease my consultations with Camille and to try to delegate more to Richard, who was really in charge of the female section of the asylum but I had replaced him in an unprecedented way. But instead, I found myself regularly frequenting the female wing to simply talk with her. I would usually go when I knew we could enjoy a little more privacy; at meal times or when there were afternoon activities. Just in the same way as when she had her own room, I knew that Camille would prefer to stay behind in bed and to go for short walks later, limping around the iron bunks.
As her present and recent past were so uninspiring and hardly worth delving into, we would focus instead on her younger years.
-“How did things end between you and Mr. Rodin?”
Camille walked along holding my arm, whilst the nurses around us made the beds and disinfected the floor of the wing. They would look at us in disbelief, not understanding what on earth I was doing there at that time escorting this gruff, miserable patient about, who they considered no one special.
-“Bit by bit. In the first place, I eventually realised that he would never leave the tiresome Rose Beuret, his life-long partner, in spite of all his promises. Secondly, I found out that he was robbing me of my fame, I was terribly afraid of him, and afraid that he would do everything possible to keep my name and prestige as a sculptress bound to his. He also put together a coterie to steal my maquettes and ideas.”
The information I had been gathering was not exactly consistent with her side of the story, although there seemed to be some logic behind it. There were however documents and testimonies that claimed Auguste Rodin had tried to catapult Camille into fame when they were together, and even after they had permanently separated.
-“Are you entirely sure that's how it happened?” I asked, knowing that my insinuations could easily trigger an angry reaction from her.
-“Absolutely. Mr. Rodin only wanted me to become famous after his death. It would have been a way of prolonging his life and glory through me,” she replied, in a firm, steady voice.
-“And so what did you do?”
-“I had no other choice than to move to my own studio. This turned out to be the worst thing I could have done in the eyes of both society and my family, and it sped up the conspiracy that in the end would lead me here.”
Despite my continual, thorough investigation, there was an inexplicable gap in Camille's life between 1899 and 1913 that aligned with when things ended permanently with Rodin and until her confinement at Ville-Evrard. During these years it was difficult to follow her trail, to know exactly what it was she was doing, other than sculpting and smashing the final result to pieces.
-“And in the studio, what did you do exactly?” I asked, fearlessly delving into the darkest and most eventful period of her life.
Camille stopped dead, and let go sharply of my arm, staring me straight in the eyes. There it was again, behind the unrivalled beauty of those dark-blue irises, the violence and fury, roused from the depths of her being.
-“You still think I'm mad, don't you Eduoard?”
-“I know you're not, Camille. I just want to understand,” I replied, intimidated.
-“I'll tell you the truth. I did the only thing I knew how to do; the only thing I have known how to do since I was old enough to reason was to sculpt. It may be true that I smashed everything up with my own two hands. But it wasn't the reaction of a lunatic, it was the only way and the easiest way I could think of to protect my art and prevent my pieces from being tarnished and seized, from belonging to someone else incapable of reaching such high standards of beauty and perfection.”
I pictured Camille's studio, small and dirty, scattered with now useless fragments of plaster and marble, barely traces of what would once have formed part of an exceptional, harmonious ensemble. And there she was, exhausted and manic, howling like a wounded animal as she sobbed on the floor amongst hundreds of pieces of white, gleaming stone.
Chapter 23
Jessie Lipscomb
Montdevergues, 2nd of February 1944
In the five years I had been at Montdevergues, Camille had received no visitors other than her brother Paul. Not even her mother or sister, not a single other person had come. I knew that it was strictly prohibited, but I found it rather peculiar that in those five long years no one had tried to visit her or had really pursued the matter, especially surprising when you consider that towards the end of the last century, Camille had been widely recognised in artistic circles. In the archives of the asylum, a few sporadic visits had been recorded from other relatives and from an art critic friend of hers. I suspected that the ban had been made stricter so as to fully isolate Camille.
But the last days of spring of 1929 brought with them a most unexpected visitor: Jessie Lipscomb, an acclaimed English sculptress. Disregarding the strict instructions that Louise-Athanaïse had sent to me by letter, and taking advantage of her delicate health that made it unlikely she would stir merely to continue tormenting her daughter, I allowed that graceful woman, who must have been around 70, to meet with Camille. She explained that they had shared a studio fo
r years, during the time that Rodin was teaching. Then they had grown apart after some disagreement, until eventually losing contact altogether.
-“I never stopped thinking of her all these years,” she said, taking my hand in my office, with such feeling and sincerity that it shook my delicate conscience.
-“I see,” I said, trying to ease what I perceived as a feeling of guilt that she still needed to purge herself of.
Jessie glanced quickly at her husband, William Elborne, who had quietly accompanied her, before moving closer, almost pressing herself into me. Despite her age, her gestures were delicate and she moved almost sensually, revealing something of the vivacious, ambitious young woman she had once been, now hidden behind the aged appearance before me now.
-“Mr. Faret, I want you to tell me the truth, no beating about the bush... In your opinion, is my good friend Cam mad?”
I was bewildered, and my face must have given away my alarm, as both Jessie and her husband peered at me more closely, as though trying to catch a glimpse of the answer hidden beneath my skin.
-“That's a very delicate question, and not a very easy one to answer,” I stuttered, without really knowing if the truth would have been more appropriate.
Despite having only just met, Jessie Lipscomb gripped my arm, breaking down any barriers of the circumstances and our brief acquaintance.
-“Stop talking drivel and answer my question, please, I'm too old to be wasting precious time,” she implored, in a tone of voice that meant I could only be silent or honest.
-“Why do you want to know my opinion?” I asked, trying to gain time.
-“Because I am haunted by the terrible thought that she's locked up here and that she's really as sane as any of us right now in this office, you see? It's just awful, I would love you to tell me it's not so, that Cam is completely mad and that everything that has happened to her is a disgrace, but at least a well-founded disgrace.”
-“I understand you perfectly,” I replied, bowing my head. I then paused for a good while before I continued. It was time to be frank. “I ask that what I'm about to tell you does not leave this room.”
Jessie pulled away, taken aback, bringing a hand to her mouth as she gently nodded her head sensing that perhaps it would have been better not to have pushed me.
-“Say no more,” said William Elborne, with the conviction of an English gentleman, cutting in before his silent, petrified wife.
-“Mrs. Lipscomb, unfortunately I can do nothing but confirm your worst fears. The only thing that torments Miss Claudel's mind now is the fact she is confined in this asylum,” I said, rather recklessly, in the hope that perhaps this influential and foreign lady could intercede for poor Camille.
Jessie embraced her husband and took a few moments to compose herself. I could clearly see that her worst nightmares had left their comfortable lair as dreams to take root in the real world, becoming tangible and making every event irreversible.
-“May I be alone with her?” she almost begged me, without letting go of her husband.
-“Take all the time you need,” I replied, feeling better that the worst of it was over.
I accompanied Ms. Lipscomb and her husband to the room where Camille was staying. Out of prudence, I waited outside with the guard and William Elborne, who in the end had preferred to give the ladies some privacy.
-“My wife forgot about these documents, but you may think it better not to give them to Miss Claudel,” said William, handing me a folder with some newspaper clippings.
-“May I?” I asked, removing some of the pieces of paper with trembling hands, knowing they would be about Camille.
-“Please,”
I glanced over the articles, cut from newspapers and art magazines dating back to 1898 and 1905, but quickly found myself engrossed in them in absolute awe. Camille Claude was praised, she was compared to Auguste Rodin himself, and some critics had even gone as far as to write that her lines were cleaner and her concepts bolder. As I read, totally consumed by the articles, inside I was trembling with emotion. Each time I read Camille's name attached to one of her pieces, titles that I barely recognised such as Sakountala, Clotho, L'abandon, La Valse or L'Age Mûr, and after countless compliments and praises, I felt strangely relieved, even absurdly appreciated. It was the sudden realisation that I had been right all along, that indeed, behind this old lady, abandoned to her fate, was someone exceptional and a genius. I wanted to belong to that far off, distant time, to have lived those years before I had even been born. I spent nearly two hours stood up reading the clippings that Jessie Lipscomb's husband had so kindly given to me. I can still remember off by heart some parts, perhaps the ones that moved me the most, of a beautiful, long article by a Mathias Morhardt, that I must have read about three times:
“Miss Camille Claudel is closer to Shakespeare than to Eduoard Pailleron. Nature, as seen by her and expressed through her work, immediately takes on a grandeur, a veritable majesty” and “The more we admire her work, the more we love it, the more we understand it and the more we become intoxicated by the true euphoria of Beauty.” Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. More than anyone else that man was able to transmit the extraordinary feelings that were aroused in my soul as I looked at Camille's work, so familiar to me now.
-“Mr. Faret, Mr. Faret! Are you alright?” a distant voice said suddenly, coming from an anxious guard.
I found myself leaning against the wall, dizzy, the fingers of my right hand hardly managing to hold onto the articles, whilst the rest had slipped and scattered about the corridor. I was dazed and shaken. I tried to pull myself together, rather hot and embarrassed.
-“I'm fine, thank you, I'm absolutely fine. It was just...” my voice trailed off, as even I could find no reason for my brief fainting spell.
William Elborne began to gather the clippings from the floor as I tried to compose myself, just as Jessie Lipscomb came out of Camille's room, closing the door behind her. As it shut, she burst into tears. Between her husband and myself we managed to bring her to my office, although neither he nor I could appease her.
-“It's a crime, a despicable crime!” Jessie exclaimed, waving her hand in front of my eyes before seeking refuge in the arms of William Elborne.
-“I can assure you, Ms. Lipscomb, that this is completely out of my hands. This affair is beyond my control, and is entirely to do with Miss Claudel's own family,” I replied, like a coward, trying to get others, in this case Jessie and her husband, to deal with what I had never been capable of.
-“Oh, Will, let's leave this awful place at once,” said Jessie, pulling her husband out of my office.
I accompanied them towards the entrance of Montdevergues, where in a matter of minutes a car would whisk them away far from the asylum walls, never to return. William took a few steps back towards me to hand me the articles I had just been reading and that had left such a lasting impression on me.
-“So, what shall it be... Will you keep them or shall I take them back to England?”
-“Take them, please. At this point they will only make matters worse,” I replied firmly, in an unfaltering voice.
After Jessie and William left, the asylum was submerged in a thick blanket of silence, as though life had ceased to exist in the wings, in the gardens, or anywhere. I began to wander aimlessly, carrying inside me all the pain and tremendous confusion that had broken Camille's spirit. At least I knew there was one other person in the world that shared my impotence and torture. And that thought was somewhat of a relief.
Chapter 24
The decline
Montdevergues, 5th of February 1944
Camille’s final years were agonising. As her mental and physical health were slowly but surely declining, almost in parallel Montdevergues was gradually turning into the vile place that she had always loathed, becoming the awful place it is today with more than two thousand patients crammed together. From 1935 onwards I cannot recall a single improvement and anything good to report from her routi
ne check-ups.
Camille lost a lot of weight during those years, and the rather corpulent, fervent woman I had known was barely a shadow of her former self. Her weathered face was now covered in dark spots, and her once bright, beautiful eyes were now dimmer, finally reflecting her inward decline, yet still exuding their characteristic, melancholic look.
Many an afternoon I would insist she should take a walk, to get some of the fresh air that billowed down from Mont Ventoux, spilling into the Rhone Valley. Absorbed in my own troubles and worries, we walked along in silence, as Camille was consumed by her own private thoughts that kept her at a distance from the real world. Only very occasionally would she speak, and not for long, when suddenly a strange idea seemed to pop into her mind, which only confirmed to me that the beginnings of dementia had set in.
-“Edouard, do you think it will rain this spring like the last one?” she asked on one occasion, as though it was a matter of vital importance.
-“I do hope so, Camille, because the fields could certainly do with some rain,” I replied, without going into any more details, almost certain that she would be content with any answer I gave.
-“I would so love to see the gardens filled with flowers and the lawn a lush green again. Haven’t you noticed how the flowerbeds are rather withered these days?”
It was true that the asylum gardens were becoming more and more neglected. New patients never ceased to arrive, by far overtaking the maximum capacity of the institution, at the same time as our budget barely grew year on year. As the person in charge, I preferred to allocate what little money there was to people rather than decorative plants, although it was a shame. Montdevergues was fading before my very eyes, year after year, like an old photograph, tarnished and discoloured by sunlight and the ravages of time.