Mesmerised (18 page)

May 27
th

When I wake Blanche is gone. I can tell from the position of the sun outside my window that I have overslept. A nervous shudder jolts through me. This is day three of my supposed illness. I must finish reading the
Materia Medicas
today. Tomorrow is Monday. I’m well aware that the pressure is my own.

Blanch
e has left me a fresh croissant – an innovation from the baker up the road, or so he says. Blanche assures me that every baker in Paris is claiming the same thing. There is a curl of fresh butter in a dish, slightly clarified by the burn of the sun through the window. There is a whole pot of coffee and a jug of milk without even one floating strand of hair from a cow’s udder. A small vase of freesias with their overwhelming sweet scent intoxicates me. And a paper, L’Avenir, to keep up with the enemy. She knows me well.

Another dusk. I am almost at the end of Boenninghausen’s
Materia Medica
. In Hahnemann’s there are only two remedies to go:

Valeriana

Excessive mental excitement, with hallucinations of vision, hearing and the senses in general, as in pyrexial fevers. Uncommonly rapid change of ideas. Anxiousness. Fearfulness in evening in the dark. Hypochondriacal restlessness or excitability with trembling. Despondent mood. Morbidly excitable and irritable. Hysteria, with tremulous over-excitability of the nerves and very changeable moods and ideas … .

I turn to Hahnemann. He has not recorded notes on Valeriana. His penultimate recording is:

Veratrum album

… She is inconsolable about an imaginary misfortune, runs about the room howling and crying out, with her looks directed to the ground, or sits absorbed in thought in a corner, lamenting and weeping inconsolably; worst in the evening; sleep only till 2 o'clock. He pretends he is a prince and gives himself airs accordingly. Boasts she is pregnant. He searches for faults in others … .

The word
‘boasts’ catches me. I go back a bit and read again.
He pretends he is a prince.
Then I skip to the last line.
He searches for faults in others.

I turn back to Boenninghausen, turn over several pages to the next medicine.

Veratrum Album

Mental confusion, deliria of insanities, mostly mute, religious or with pride … .

With pride, yes, with pride. My heart bursts with pride.

Monsieur Breton

May 28th

‘Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.’

Edgar Degas

I’m outside Monsieur Breton’s apartment. The last time I was here I was taken captive and tied up by the words of the policeman
Fornier. Taking into account the sustained injury to Monsieur Breton’s ankle, I am prepared to wait quite a while. Holding one foot off the floor, he finally answers the door.

‘Doctor Gachet.’

His grey hair, usually combed neatly to one side flops over his eyes. His face is sallow and thin.

‘You
received my message.’

‘You’re a doctor; you’re not allowed to be unwell.’

‘It was selfish of me I agree. I will try and do something about my humanness in future,’ I say, making a slight bow. But my words do not prompt even a vague smile.

‘Would you like me to have a look at your leg?’

‘How much are you going to charge me?’

‘How much do you think such a service is worth?’

‘I suppose you’d better come in then.’

He hops
through the narrow, windowless hallway, holding onto the wall for support. I offer to take his free arm to help him but he shrugs me off. Where the hallway widens is a plain wooden chair.

‘We can do it here,’ I suggest.

He sits down gratefully. I open the doors to the adjoining rooms for more light and kneel to examine his swollen flesh. The bruising has decreased and there is no inflammation. This is a very good sign.

‘What happened to the bandage?’

‘I took it off.’

‘It would have been better if you had kept it on.’

‘Pah.’

‘Well, there’s no point in my doing another one then. Can you put your foot down?’

He tries, his face blanches and he immediately lifts his foot up into the air like a balloon. Then he tries again and this time it rests lightly on the parquet.

‘Good.’

‘Have you taken the remedy?’

He shakes his head.

‘Look, you have definitely torn a ligament. It’s going to mend with or without a remedy. I have something upstairs that will make the healing much faster and will strengthen any weakness left in the joint. You may also have a slight crack in your bone. This too will mend by itself. Again a remedy would accelerate the healing process.’

‘No thank you.’

‘You should sit with your foot up, resting it on another chair.’

‘I’ll do what I please.’

‘Right then,’ I say, standing up. ‘As you are taking the advice of your own internal medic, I don’t think that it’s necessary for me to call again. Don’t get up. I can see myself out.’

I start to walk towards the door.

‘Doctor Gachet?’

I turn around.
Monsieur Breton is waving a ten-franc note in the air.

Relief

May 29th

‘When you’ve got it, you’ve got it. When you haven’t, you begin again.’

Edouard Manet

I only had
Veratrum Album
in stock in 30c but I need something stronger. Something strong enough to push a very sick vital force in the direction of wellness and so I’ve been diluting and succussing for the last ten hours. Now, as I walk towards the river, feeling as light as if I have just taken a dose of Cannabis, there is a sensation in my diaphragm that confirms I have the correct remedy in my pocket. As I enter the hospital, the chill of the high stone arched walls is palpable. Half a dozen statues look down on me with a frozen expression. Who cares? I sing ‘Bonjour’ to Madame Lemont.

‘I have a message for you,’ she replies, her voice slicing through the atmosphere. My footsteps and my heartbeat amplify as I make my way towards her. I expect an envelope containing my dismissal or a withdrawal of homeopathy from the list of treatments for Bella.

‘Doctor Ipsen has been waiting for you. He wants to know as soon as you arrive.’

‘Do you know where he is now?’

‘With Doctor Charcot, of course.’

‘I will f
ind him. And Catherine Morrisot, do you have her timetable there?’

‘She’s in the library.’

Catherine is wiping down the shirt of a patient.

‘Catherine
!’ She looks around. ‘Look, please carry on with what you’re doing. I just wanted you to know that I’m back with a remedy for Bella. When will you be available to take notes?’

‘I’m not
sure; I’ll have to ask nurse Fontaine to take over my post. There’s plenty of gossip. Doctor Ipsen’s been drinking coffee all week with Doctor Charcot in his study and he has repeatedly come to me for news as to when you will be back. I would guess that they will want you to see Bella as soon as possible.’

In the reverberating hallway, she says, ‘Samuel Hahnemann’s
“The Organon” is very interesting.’

‘You’ve been reading the
Organon?’

‘Yes, I found a copy in a bookshop on my way home.’

As we arrive the door to Charcot’s office opens as if it was known in advance that I would be standing there. Catherine waits for me in the corridor whilst I go in and talk to Charcot.

‘You are better?’
Ipsen asks, sitting princely in a high backed chair.

‘Yes, thank you, I am.’

‘And what was your self-diagnosis?’

‘I diagnosed
Bryonia.’

‘
Bryonia, how interesting, I have never heard of this ill. Is it catching?’ he asks, his lips twisted into a supercilious smile.

‘So you will be able to identify it when you see it:
symptoms are better for stillness and hard pressure. There is irritability especially when disturbed, a fear of the future and a constant preoccupation with one’s work. Bryonia is the Latin. Wild hops, the common name. It is also the remedy. And here’s
Veratrum Album
, my diagnosis for Bella Laffaire,’ I say, taking a vial from my pocket and displaying it in the palm of my hand.

‘There is a nurse outside?’ asks Charcot.

‘Nurse Morrisot.’

‘You seem to have found some attachment to Nurse
Morrisot. Isn’t she also the one who delivered the news to me that you weren’t well?’

I don’
t answer him.

‘Very well, tell her to bring that
Laffaire woman in here. I want to be a spectator when your homeopathic remedy is administered. I’m giving a talk at the Faculty next week and will be happy to tell them all about your treatment. It will make very good after dinner entertainment, I feel,’ he says waving his arm at me from behind his big oak desk.

When Bella is dragged in, supported around her shoulders by Catherine and Marguerite
Bottard, so that the tops of her feet slide along the floor, I say nothing. When she lifts her head I notice she has a black eye and a broken nose, I say nothing. When her eyeballs roll upwards behind her lids from too much laudanum, I say nothing. When she slumps backwards in a chair and I pour a tiny white pilulle from the indented cork into her mouth and watch as the lactose dissolves against the wet flesh of her inner lip, a sense of relief washes over me. Catherine rests the ledger on the corner of Charcot’s desk. He leans over to watch her record an entry.

‘Record the time, Nurse
Morrisot. Please don’t forget to record the exact time and date,’ I say, fixing the stopper back in the vial.

Doctor
Ipsen looks from myself to Catherine several times. When she finishes, she and the other matron haul Bella up again to carry her out.

‘
Doctor Ipsen, you’re not writing anything down. Don’t you want to keep your own notes up to date?’ I ask.

He looks bemused.

‘You can rely on Faculty men not to forget anything.’ Charcot comes around his desk, puts a hand on my shoulder and is ushering me out. ‘It comes with the territory,’ he says.

Different Perspectives

August 29
th

‘Work lovingly done is the secret of all order and all happiness.’

Pierre-
Auguste Renoir

In the end, it is a thin line that divides between health and sickness especially when involving the mind. The process of recovery is not to be found, necessarily, in changes of organic material in the brain but in behaviour, whilst the impetus to act in an irrational way becomes slowly overwhelmed by sanity. It is incredible to see. I am witnessing this process now in the case of Bella Laffaire.

In a consulting room with Bella and
Ipsen, he stands by the door as if fearing infection. She sits on a wooden chair in the centre. I sit on a bed by the window facing everyone. Catherine Morrisot is in a corner taking notes.

I admit to the discovery of one-upmanship and the enjoyment of disarming my competitor.
Drawing out the moments that he has to endure watching the success of Bella’s treatment, I sketch her face. Bella, who only four months ago was as wild as a beast, is in this moment beautifully composed. She is not drugged. For the last three weeks she has only had one teaspoon of laudanum each day before sleep. Bad dreams still haunt her. Have her up in the night attacking monsters, so I’m told.

Ah, but look at her now. The hard lines on her face have disappeared, replaced by smooth skin around her mouth and eyes, and her forehead has un-puckered. I can see that she is much younger
even than we had at first presumed. It saddens me that I did not have the opportunity to sketch her some months ago, or for Victorine to paint her, for to have such a visual contrast on record would have been amazing.

‘Bella?
How are you doing today?’

She rubs her left wrist with her right hand and gives me a twisted smile.

‘The string that they tie you up with at night is cutting into your skin?’

She shuffles in her seat. I put my sketch aside
, take out a pot of Calendula from my pocket and rub some gently into her wrists.

‘I’ll make this part of your prescription.’

She stares at the floor.

‘She is eating better,
Doctor Gachet, and the other nurses report that she hasn’t had any violent outbursts in the drawing room for several months. In the words of Marguerite Bottard …’ Catherine shuffles through some papers until she finds one which she extracts from the pile and reads, ‘… helpful, that’s how I’d describe her recently. No more talking nonsense. No more prancing around. I don’t know why she’s still here, actually, do you?’

‘I told her I didn’t
, Doctor,’ Catherine says, with the vague hint of a smile.

‘Thank you, Catherine.’

I glance over at Ipsen. He has his hand over his mouth and his fingers are playing the accordion on his cheek.

‘Bella, I’d say that things are improving for you then, but how do you feel?’

One tear bursts free forming a rivulet down the left side of her face.

‘As soon as you are better, Bella, the hospital will dismiss you. Do you think you are better now? Please talk to me and tell me what you’re thinking.’

‘I’d be frightened to leave here,’ she says, softly, with her hand over her mouth as if ashamed of the words seeping out. She quickly glances over her shoulder at Ipsen and just as quickly turns back towards me.

‘You’re afraid?’

‘Yes.’

‘What are you afraid of?’

‘Of him.’

She glances over her shoulder once again.

‘Doctor Ipsen?’

‘Really Gachet, this is just ridiculous,’
Ipsen says. ‘Anyone can see that the girl is just making this up.’

I decide to continue with my s
ketch that I abandoned some moments ago. For several minutes the room goes quiet save for the sound of charcoal marking paper. The light has slightly changed, grown darker, the air heavier as if it might rain. Bella’s cheeks have dropped slightly. Her lower lip trembles. It feels as if the room is filled with melancholia.

‘Not the doctor,’ Bella
says.

I place the drawing beside me on the bed. The charcoal makes a grey stain on the sheet.

‘The one that always comes here to see me and says I am his property. That I will always be his property.’

Ipsen
stands with one leg crossed over the other. His elbows are crossed too. One hand holds his chin as he looks over at Catherine who scratches in her ledger with a fountain pen.

‘Who is this man? Does he have a name? Are you sure he comes to visit you?’

‘He is a very bad man.’

‘What does he look like?’

‘The devil.’