line on the page: the cloak of the woman standing still by the wall. A simple, U-shaped line. Now what? I looked again. I tried to force myself to draw only what my eye saw, not what I knew was there. Not the body in the round, the shoulders or the bowed head, but the patterns of dark and light. Drawing the mad. To see why I felt it was wrong, I would try it.
The pen was a terrible instrument. Every mistake was permanent. It was too black, too coarse. I could make only lines, not shadows, and the lines I made were ugly. The memory of Gautier’s deftness annoyed me. It was so simple for him to draw. He scarcely thought about it, barely considered where the charcoal should next touch the page or how to shape a stroke. I made a few sad, vertical lines to indicate folds on the woman’s cloak. The hem rippled. I drew a wavy line. I hated it.
Hands are difficult. Even gifted artists shy away from hands. I blew the ink dry on the page and turned it over. At the center, toward the top, I made two clusters of tiny lines—one, two, three, four, five. I drew another line down from them, and another—arms, raised overhead. I glanced at the woman talking to the sky, who was now singing and gently swaying, reaching upward. I drew in an oval between the lines, for her head. It was the most rudimentary, clumsy sketching. I had taken lessons in Lille; I knew better ways to do these things. But something drove me to continue. I wanted to finish what I had begun. Features in the oval; dashes for eyes, an open O for the mouth. Hair; straight lines with no hint of the limpness of the real thing.
It was impossible. I had no idea how to render what I saw into marks on the page. The woman turned, bent at the waist, turned again. I drew a line that gave her a torso, hips, a skirt. The line sagged. I persisted. The shoulders were nonexistent. The nib of the pen sputtered and skipped as I drew, leaving ragged outlines. I didn’t know what to do about feet. I tried, remembering the words of my teacher, to lay down a shadow with a few parallel lines.
I was working faster now, driven by frustration but also a kind of hunger. I didn’t like what I was producing; it made me despise my incapacity. But as I drew, something strange happened. I could not translate what I saw into lines on the page. But I could, by trying to draw the women, share their physical state. I could sense the strange internal rhythm that prompted one to dance, the black weight that surrounded and stifled the melancholiac.
One of the furieuses had come into the courtyard wearing her straitjacket. Like some of her fellow patients, she had very short hair. Sometimes the wardresses cut patients’ hair to keep them from pulling it out. Her head looked strangely large and her neck slender, like a child’s. She walked carefully, very upright, as if barely keeping her balance with every step. I flipped a page and made a quick, narrow triangle—her skirt as she walked. I didn’t know how to continue. For her upper body I drew nothing more than a kind of block, with angles indicated to signal the bent elbows. Her head was not round, but I had made a circle anyway, then corrected it. I was pressing too hard with the pen now, dragging threads of paper with the nib, almost tearing the page. My hands were shaking with my rage and frustration. I could not draw. I could not draw these women. And yet I felt a kind of compulsion to do it. I was sure I knew now how to walk in a gilet de force .
The chapel bell began to ring, and I knew it was time for me to go. My absence at the Faculté de Médecine had been remarked on with disapproval. I screwed the cap onto my pen and slipped it into my pocket, but I carried my notebook by the cover, to let the pages flutter themselves dry in the air. Later that day I returned to the hospital and coaxed a wardress to button me into one of the straitjackets. She must have thought I looked comical, pacing up and down the empty dormitory with my hands
The pen was a terrible instrument. Every mistake was permanent. It was too black, too coarse. I could make only lines, not shadows, and the lines I made were ugly. The memory of Gautier’s deftness annoyed me. It was so simple for him to draw. He scarcely thought about it, barely considered where the charcoal should next touch the page or how to shape a stroke. I made a few sad, vertical lines to indicate folds on the woman’s cloak. The hem rippled. I drew a wavy line. I hated it.
Hands are difficult. Even gifted artists shy away from hands. I blew the ink dry on the page and turned it over. At the center, toward the top, I made two clusters of tiny lines—one, two, three, four, five. I drew another line down from them, and another—arms, raised overhead. I glanced at the woman talking to the sky, who was now singing and gently swaying, reaching upward. I drew in an oval between the lines, for her head. It was the most rudimentary, clumsy sketching. I had taken lessons in Lille; I knew better ways to do these things. But something drove me to continue. I wanted to finish what I had begun. Features in the oval; dashes for eyes, an open O for the mouth. Hair; straight lines with no hint of the limpness of the real thing.
It was impossible. I had no idea how to render what I saw into marks on the page. The woman turned, bent at the waist, turned again. I drew a line that gave her a torso, hips, a skirt. The line sagged. I persisted. The shoulders were nonexistent. The nib of the pen sputtered and skipped as I drew, leaving ragged outlines. I didn’t know what to do about feet. I tried, remembering the words of my teacher, to lay down a shadow with a few parallel lines.
I was working faster now, driven by frustration but also a kind of hunger. I didn’t like what I was producing; it made me despise my incapacity. But as I drew, something strange happened. I could not translate what I saw into lines on the page. But I could, by trying to draw the women, share their physical state. I could sense the strange internal rhythm that prompted one to dance, the black weight that surrounded and stifled the melancholiac.
One of the furieuses had come into the courtyard wearing her straitjacket. Like some of her fellow patients, she had very short hair. Sometimes the wardresses cut patients’ hair to keep them from pulling it out. Her head looked strangely large and her neck slender, like a child’s. She walked carefully, very upright, as if barely keeping her balance with every step. I flipped a page and made a quick, narrow triangle—her skirt as she walked. I didn’t know how to continue. For her upper body I drew nothing more than a kind of block, with angles indicated to signal the bent elbows. Her head was not round, but I had made a circle anyway, then corrected it. I was pressing too hard with the pen now, dragging threads of paper with the nib, almost tearing the page. My hands were shaking with my rage and frustration. I could not draw. I could not draw these women. And yet I felt a kind of compulsion to do it. I was sure I knew now how to walk in a gilet de force .
The chapel bell began to ring, and I knew it was time for me to go. My absence at the Faculté de Médecine had been remarked on with disapproval. I screwed the cap onto my pen and slipped it into my pocket, but I carried my notebook by the cover, to let the pages flutter themselves dry in the air. Later that day I returned to the hospital and coaxed a wardress to button me into one of the straitjackets. She must have thought I looked comical, pacing up and down the empty dormitory with my hands
Similar Books
