CHARCOT AND THE SAINT

 

(first published in The Reader)

 

 

‘I said, “Mama, I don’t like your new man. I don’t like him”.’

        He’s thinking, Pretty, pretty Augustine.

        ‘I was thirteen, Dr Charcot. An innocent.’

        ‘Of course.’ He flicks through his papers, which are unconnected with this present case.

        ‘Sir?’ 

 

*

 

‘I have named her Augustine.’

        ‘Named a lunatic after a saint! Well, perhaps they are much the same. The idiot, the mystic…’

        ‘She is not an idiot.’

        She listens at the door, biting her fingernails. She needs to know what they want from her so that she can perform when asked. She has to know how mad she’s supposed to be. Satisfied, she goes back to her room where she dreams of blood and fire. Faces hidden behind shrouds. Dead men.

 

*

 

Observe, examine, hypnotise.      

They look each other in the eye but hers are blank. No recognition, no emotion.

        ‘My dear. This is good for you.’

        Nothing.

        He encourages blankness, an absence of feeling. Her eyes are the deadest he’s ever seen. He is the first to break away.

        You win.

 

*

 

Augustine’s talents are connected to her illness, her hysteria. For her “attitudes passionnelles” she is a star. She is able to make the symptoms of her hysteria photogenic.

        The photographer, Albert, thinks the fifteen-year-old very, very appealing.

        ‘My real name is not Augustine. He – the doctor – told me I should be called after St Augustine. He was converted, after living a life of sin.’

        ‘What is your sin, Augustine?’

        ‘St Augustine believed original sin could be transmitted through the sexual act.’

        ‘Ah. You know, I shall have to go soon…’

        On cue, she loses consciousness and her body goes into convulsions. Albert looks at his watch, waiting for the phase of her hysteria he can photograph, her attitudes passionnelles. These are her mimes, from the strange and awful back catalogue of her life.

A hypnotised girl is like a drugged girl. Better, because the limbs move and the eyes remain open. Lovely, lovely marionette.

        Albert can’t take his eyes off the girl. She is kneeling on the floor, praying, her clothing dishevelled, one breast nearly – oh so tantalisingly nearly! – bared. For what does she pray?

        ‘He should have called you Ophelia. That’s his usual trick – to stick flowers in their hair and ask me to emphasise the hollowness of their cheeks.’

        Monsieur Charcot watches over Albert’s shoulder and smiles. When he speaks, Albert jumps.

        ‘Every show has its star, Albert. Even the Ophelias can’t hold a candle to Augustine. She is beyond Ophelia.’

        Augustine appears oblivious to the men staring at her. They munch marrons glacés. Augustine is so hungry.

        She wants to tell Monsieur Charcot about the dreams, the blood and the fire, the men. Words do not interest him. The blood gushes, the pyre reaches to the sky and still he does not want to know. The streets run with wine and blood – the blood of men – and she is the armoured heroine, St Augustine, her horse’s hooves daintily negotiating the deathstrewn street, the shrouded bodies, the burning hearts.

        ‘Monsieur Charcot!’

        ‘Ah – you’ve come back to us, have you? Very good. You should see yourself, Augustine. You couldn’t be more perfect.’

        ‘But the dreams – I must tell you…’

        Gone.

        They’ve all gone.

        I cannot express what I do not feel.

        She is only truly alive when she is being photographed. No other time exists.

 

*

 

For the annual Bal des Folles Augustine has had her hair plaited overnight so that when it’s brushed out in the morning it looks like a soft cloud against the plain white gown.

        She looks up at Monsieur Charcot. She trusts him.

        ‘Bark like a dog, Augustine!’

        His voice, hard as marble. She hears him. She listens.

        ‘My God! He truly can hypnotise these creatures!’

        Augustine would do anything for Monsieur Charcot, even pretend to be a four-legged beast. Even listen to the laughter. Even be despised.

        If only he would hear her.

 

*

 

‘But Monsieur – he was my mother’s lover! Doesn’t that make it worse?’

        ‘But how many attacks have you had in the past week?’

        ‘You aren’t listening to me.’

        ‘Don’t sulk, Augustine. You are lucky to be here, you know.’

        ‘In a prison.’

        ‘A hospital.’

        She refuses to tell him how many “episodes” she’s had. This, despite the fact she’s now achieved wider fame, as the most used model in the published volume of “Photographs from Salpêtrière”. The captions annoy her. The picture of her praying is titled “Amorous Supplication”. The one of her asleep is called “Eroticism”.

        ‘But I was thinking of God,’ Augustine complains, ‘not men.’

        ‘My dear, you are the patient and I the doctor. I know you better than you know yourself. You gave me your history, remember? Your mother’s lover? Your mother?

        Oh, but she’s beautiful! How could any man resist?

        ‘Please be good, Augustine.’

 

*

 

St Augustine, she reads, lived for fifteen years with his mistress, who bore him a son.

        ‘The bastard!’

        His baptism was attended by his son. The book makes no mention of what happened to the mistress. The son is called Adeonatus. The woman’s name is not given.

        The sexual act is a means of transmitting original sin. His sins were washed clean. What about hers?

        Augustine looks around the room. Something has happened.

        ‘Monsieur Charcot!’

        Her cry is echoey. She hears his shiny black shoes – she knows it’s him. Every pair of shoes has its own special sound.

        ‘What is it? Are you hurt?’

        ‘Sir – everything is in black or white. I can’t see colours any more.’

        He calls Albert. He must photograph her in this new, curious phase of her condition.

        ‘Augustine? Why won’t you smile?’

        ‘How can I? I’ve lost my colours.’

        ‘They weren’t specifically yours, Augustine.’ He and Albert laugh. Gentle. Mocking.

        ‘I’m fed up. I don’t want to be photographed any more.’

        No one is listening.

 

*

 

If she can get close enough to the window, she can see the outside world unframed.

 

There is broken glass on the floor. She walks over it in her bare feet. Her dress is no more than rags.

        ‘I tore it,’ she explains as an attendant roughly bandages her feet.

        ‘Don’t bind me!’ She kicks the woman and a doctor comes forward to administer chloroform. The struggle is brief. She is carried to a small cell with a door that locks.

        Charcot watches the procedure, shaking his head. Has he failed?

        ‘Wait!’

        He strokes her hair. Waves and waves of light brown hair.

        ‘I couldn’t have done more for her.’

        ‘Don’t blame yourself. Some patients are lost causes.’

        ‘Should I give up?’

        ‘On her? She’s only one case, there are plenty of others. Besides, she won’t stay beautiful for ever. Her type lose their looks young. If not before, then with the first baby.’

        ‘But her face…’

        ‘There are others,’ the attendant repeats. ‘Others and better. This one thinks herself a queen. You spoiled her.’

        ‘She was already spoiled. Poor thing.’

 

*

 

The poor thing disguises herself as a man. It’s not difficult, she’s watched them closely enough to know how to imitate one. She has been biding her time, waiting until they trusted her; waiting for the door to be left unlocked.

        They wouldn’t listen to her words or see the world as she sees it, in black and white, the other side of the lens.

        Blood, fire, rage, death.

        She takes her dreams with her.