around here. He impressed upon me that these are women without inhibitions, not aware of what they’re saying. I didn’t really understand what he meant until one of them walked right up and kissed me. The doctor is wrong, they know exactly what they’re saying,” he protested. “I’ve been propositioned very explicitly twice, and I’ve only been here since noon.”
“Oh, yes, that’s the other thing. I was informed last week that this group of externs is disappointing. Not handsome enough. So you shouldn’t be proud, it’s only that they’re desperate.”
He looked me up and down theatrically. “Well, of course they are. Look at you!” He was quicker-witted than I was.
We sat silently for a few minutes, watching the women. There was a quality to their voices that I was trying to analyze, a kind of high timbre that made them sound more like children than grown women. I took out my notebook to write down some of the phrases I could make out: “Take it, take it!” called one woman, while another sang a bit of plainsong, perfectly.
Gautier had his portfolio on his knee, with a sheet of paper clipped to it. As if without thinking, he drew a few lines, and the space of the courtyard was suddenly defined on his page. A light vertical, the tree in the center. Two more lines, the path. I had seen him do this over and over again since he arrived in Paris three years earlier. Out of nothing, he conjured something. Though you knew it was just charcoal on paper, your eye accepted the illusion. A tree, a wall, a hat, a man, a bowl of fruit. He complained endlessly about the École des Beaux-Arts and the ceaseless repetitive drawing exercises that he considered useless, but I had known his work as a student back in Lille. He had improved immensely since then.
Now he began to rough in the figures. Laure and a friend were strolling up the walkway. An old woman, one of the “restantes” —a permanent patient who would live out her days at the Salpêtrière—was standing still in the sunlight, gabbling up at the sky and gesticulating with her hands raised. “Can you tell, by looking at them, the nature of their illness?” he asked, his eyes swinging between the patients and the paper.
“Sometimes,” I answered, watching his charcoal. My own notebook felt clumsy in my hands. “The one in the cloak,” I went on, “sitting on the ground, is a melancholiac. Always sad, lacking spirit, lacking energy. They turn in upon themselves. You often see them curled up like this,” I said, folding my arms to my chest and lifting my knees. “That one, over there, is another.” I pointed. “The woman with her face to the wall. She will remain there, immobile, until the wardress brings her inside.”
“Will she get better?”
“She won’t get worse.”
“And why does that woman have to wear a straitjacket?”
“She is what we call a furieuse . Normally they are housed in their own ward, but her madness has just recently become violent, so she is still with her usual companions. She may yet calm down, and we don’t like to move patients to different divisions unless it’s necessary. The furieuses have manic spells when they hit and scratch and shriek. They become dangerous to themselves and to others, so they must be restrained in the jackets.”
“And the one flouncing around with the imaginary fan?”
“What we call a monomaniac. She believes she is the Duchesse de Berry, and when she has delivered the heir to the throne, she will move to the Tuileries.”
“Don’t tell the emperor,” Gautier joked. “Does she know about any of it? About 1848?”
“We tell her. She doesn’t hear. She awaits her confinement steadfastly. She sometimes even begins labor. And here is the remarkable thing, Gautier—she has not had her monthly courses in years, and when her imaginary labor begins, her heartbeat rises and her stomach muscles actually contract. Look at the way she walks,” I added. She took slow steps,
“Oh, yes, that’s the other thing. I was informed last week that this group of externs is disappointing. Not handsome enough. So you shouldn’t be proud, it’s only that they’re desperate.”
He looked me up and down theatrically. “Well, of course they are. Look at you!” He was quicker-witted than I was.
We sat silently for a few minutes, watching the women. There was a quality to their voices that I was trying to analyze, a kind of high timbre that made them sound more like children than grown women. I took out my notebook to write down some of the phrases I could make out: “Take it, take it!” called one woman, while another sang a bit of plainsong, perfectly.
Gautier had his portfolio on his knee, with a sheet of paper clipped to it. As if without thinking, he drew a few lines, and the space of the courtyard was suddenly defined on his page. A light vertical, the tree in the center. Two more lines, the path. I had seen him do this over and over again since he arrived in Paris three years earlier. Out of nothing, he conjured something. Though you knew it was just charcoal on paper, your eye accepted the illusion. A tree, a wall, a hat, a man, a bowl of fruit. He complained endlessly about the École des Beaux-Arts and the ceaseless repetitive drawing exercises that he considered useless, but I had known his work as a student back in Lille. He had improved immensely since then.
Now he began to rough in the figures. Laure and a friend were strolling up the walkway. An old woman, one of the “restantes” —a permanent patient who would live out her days at the Salpêtrière—was standing still in the sunlight, gabbling up at the sky and gesticulating with her hands raised. “Can you tell, by looking at them, the nature of their illness?” he asked, his eyes swinging between the patients and the paper.
“Sometimes,” I answered, watching his charcoal. My own notebook felt clumsy in my hands. “The one in the cloak,” I went on, “sitting on the ground, is a melancholiac. Always sad, lacking spirit, lacking energy. They turn in upon themselves. You often see them curled up like this,” I said, folding my arms to my chest and lifting my knees. “That one, over there, is another.” I pointed. “The woman with her face to the wall. She will remain there, immobile, until the wardress brings her inside.”
“Will she get better?”
“She won’t get worse.”
“And why does that woman have to wear a straitjacket?”
“She is what we call a furieuse . Normally they are housed in their own ward, but her madness has just recently become violent, so she is still with her usual companions. She may yet calm down, and we don’t like to move patients to different divisions unless it’s necessary. The furieuses have manic spells when they hit and scratch and shriek. They become dangerous to themselves and to others, so they must be restrained in the jackets.”
“And the one flouncing around with the imaginary fan?”
“What we call a monomaniac. She believes she is the Duchesse de Berry, and when she has delivered the heir to the throne, she will move to the Tuileries.”
“Don’t tell the emperor,” Gautier joked. “Does she know about any of it? About 1848?”
“We tell her. She doesn’t hear. She awaits her confinement steadfastly. She sometimes even begins labor. And here is the remarkable thing, Gautier—she has not had her monthly courses in years, and when her imaginary labor begins, her heartbeat rises and her stomach muscles actually contract. Look at the way she walks,” I added. She took slow steps,
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