Mesmerised

Michelle Shine

Description

Dr Paul Gachet is a doctor and artist, and - against the unwelcoming backdrop of 1860s Paris - a homeopath. He lives, loves and works alongside the rebellious group of artists who will soon become known as the Impressionists, and his struggle for credibility mirrors theirs as he endeavours to bring homeopathy to the mainstream.His desire to cure and understand the nature of healing substances pushes him to the brink as he imbibes his own medicine, falls in love, and agonises over his chosen path and the sacrifices he must make to follow it.When he treats a young prostitute at the hospital Salpetriere who is diagnosed with insanity, he discovers there's so much more than just his integrity at stake. Evoking the heady atmosphere of 19th-century Paris, and the colours and characters of the artists of the time, this powerful debut will appeal to fans of atmospheric and authentic period drama and historical fiction.

Informations

• Publié par: Distributed by eBookpartnership
• Date de parution: 26 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781839784859
• Langue: English

Extrait

Also by Michelle Shine
Song for Ria
The Subtle Art of Healing
MESMERISED
Michelle Shine

First published in the UK in 2013 by Indigo Dreams Publishing This edition published by RedDoor Press www.reddoorpress.co.uk
© 2022 Michelle Shine
The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permissions granted to reproduce the copyright material in this book. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book
The right of Michelle Shine to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover design: Kari Brownlie
Typesetting: Jen Parker, Fuzzy Flamingo www.fuzzyflamingo.co.uk
To the man of my dreams Jon Shine 1950–2009 and my beautiful children, Matthew, Rebecca and Daniel
Contents
Also by Michelle Shine
January 1863
Moving Home
Académie Suisse
Protest Day
La Salpêtrière
At Home
Wonderful Weekend
Monday Morning
Meeting with Charcot
That Evening
The Day after the Night Before
My Work
Day of Leisure
My Mentor, Clemens
Phosphorus Three
Arrival of Spies
The Scientist
The Lover
Madame Manet’s Soirée
Suzanne ’ s Consultation
Bella ’s First Remedy
Premonition
Reunion
The Salon des Refusé s
Bird with a Broken Wing
Lost
Found
Haunted
Luncheon with Edouard
An Unexpected Patient
The Homeopaths’ Convention
Montmartre Night
The Medical Detective
Monsieur Breton
Relief
Different Perspectives
Master of the Art
Melancholia
We Men
Perspective
The Pinch of the Game
Darkness and Light
Mesmerised
1864?
Epilogue
Asni è res, July 31, 1883
Author ’s Note
A cknowledgements
About the Author
January 1863
I buy pure phosphorus from an old alchemist who lives in a slanted house on the hill that leads to Montmartre. His wife, Madame Armand, has a small plot of land where she grows vegetables and flowers to sell at the market. Many of the brown bottles in my collection contain fluids that were distilled from her produce.
In Monsieur Armand’s laboratory, in the middle of the afternoon, all shutters remain closed. Thin streams of light trespass and fall in diagonal lines across glass vessels. Tubes lead from one to the other in a world of liquids that bubble and fizz.
‘This is a very combustible material.’ Leaning on his stick, he licks his lips, wrinkles deepening in concentration under strands of white hair.
‘Monsieur Armand, I really appreciate this, I know you originally acquired the substance for yourself.’
‘Shh, say no more,’ he says, his free hand at my back.
A baby cries.
‘That’s Madeleine, my grandchild,’ he says, eyes lit. ‘What are you going to do with the phosphorus?’
‘I’m going to make a homeopathic remedy.’
‘What’s that?’ He pulls down a book from a splintery shelf behind him. Dust puffs into the air like face powder in a thespian’s dressing room.
‘No,’ he says, opening the leather-bound and gilt-edged tome. ‘It’s not mentioned here. And therefore… ’ he claps the book shut, ‘… it does not exist.’
Moving Home
March 20th
‘It is not enough to know your craft – you have to have feeling.’
Edouard Manet
It is seven o’clock in the evening and deceitfully dark. I sit on a crate in the centre of the main room in my new apartment in rue Faubourg Saint Denis. I face two large windows which look out on a full moon that throws a white smudge at my feet. Inside, there is no light. The fireplace is silent in its unlit state. My greatcoat hangs on a hook behind the door wearing a lunar streak. I don’t feel cold inside although my feet are numb and when I touch my cheek with my fingers they are shockingly cold. The warmth in my chest brings me comfort; this room is embracing me.
Outside, three stories below, there’s the clip-clop of horses’ hooves, neighing, the closing of carriage doors and the raised voices of easily affronted Parisians. My heart lurches for my good fortune, for this is a great room. The walls are high, luminous, practically begging for art to adorn them. My desk, which seemed so large and cumbersome at my last address in the rue Montholon, proudly occupies less than one third of the space here, and is tucked away at one end. I imagine receiving patients here, putting chairs out in the hallway where they can wait. I will make the alcove into a kitchen/dispensary for my medicine. But not only that, this room is conducive to artistry. The light is good. It is where I shall paint.
I will store my easel and my canvases in the cupboard in the small lobby – through the door to the right of the fireplace – leading to the bedroom.
I shall be happy here.
A knock on the door jolts me from my thoughts. Without thinking to light a gas lamp or candle, I jump up.
‘Who is it?’ I call through the door.
‘Victorine Meurent.’
Releasing the shiny new brass chain, I let her in.
‘Bonjour, Monsieur Docteur, my dear friend Paul,’ she greets me. ‘It’s very dark. I wouldn’t have thought you were a man who was into séance,’ she says, bounding in and stopping short only a few steps beyond the threshold. She looks back at me.
‘Victorine,’ I tell her, ‘you have a very vivid imagination. I’ve just moved in. I’ve been sitting on that crate contemplating my new direction and inwardly celebrating. Let me bring some light to the situation.’ I rub my cold hands on my trouser legs and hunt blindly through packing boxes for matches, which I eventually find. I strike one and the phosphorus glows bright like the sun but it is a lesser flame that transfers to the gas lamp via a spark pulled from a brass cord.
‘I’ve come to ask you when would be a convenient time to consult with you. I knew it wouldn’t be now, but Camille gave me your new address and I’m desperate to see you professionally. So I thought I would stop by in passing to ask you this question,’ she says, her body as composed as Savoldo’s Mary Magdalene , silver caped and waiting on a hillside above the port in Old Jerusalem.
‘Forgive me if I don’t ask you what the problem is,’ I say, indicating with my arms the bareness of the space around me.
‘It’s the usual.’
‘Ah!’
Victorine is a city girl, who like so many others, lives on her wits, but she has a talent for life and there is very little that she cannot do.
‘I’m not unpacked yet. You’ll have to come back tomorrow at around eleven. I will have what you want to hand.’
‘Paul, you’re wonderful,’ she tells me, with her palms on my shoulders and her red lipstick making imprints on my cheeks, as usual.
When she leaves, I immediately extinguish the light and look around, re-focusing. Perhaps Victorine is on the street looking up, finding me odd to desire darkness in this way. I pick up the matches left on the mantel and strike a bulbous head against the grainy stone fireplace. Immediately it flares white gold and blinding. Phosphorescent. What is to be learned? I do this three more times then retire to bed.
March 21st
Dawn. There’s a lacy, iridescent frost on the windows. I am up early, blowing heat through my fingers, unpacking logs, kindling, old newspapers, and lighting the fire. It is Saturday, unlike Sunday, a day of rest for me, although not always. Sometimes there is work to do at the hospital and very often there are callers with acute ailments. Today, it is Victorine.
Georges de Bellio, a medical colleague of mine, will also come to help me build shelves in my kitchen/dispensary, which will also serve as a pharmacy. There is even running water in there thanks to Haussmann, Napoleon the third’s lackey, who rebuilt our city to a modern specification.
With the fire crackling, I hunt through six boxes for the medicine required by Victorine. My desk shall separate us. She will sit opposite me and say she wishes for some more Mercury, just in case. I will talk to her again about condoms and how they are to be used. I will lecture her on hygiene as a preventative against disease. She will purse her lips, rest one elbow on my desk and sit with her chin neatly framed by her hand. She will stare directly at me, and say, ‘Like I said, just in case.’
No doubt, I will sigh and dispense a small two-gram vial that will contain around fifteen pillules. She will take one every time she beds a man unprotected.
She comes for this prescription once or twice a year, ever since I told her at the Café Guerbois, ‘Mercury is the medicine for syphilis but it is also a poison.’
‘Yes, but can you prevent syphilis, that’s what I want to know?’ she asked, blowing Turkish cigarette smoke at the ceiling.
‘The disease is endemic.’
Her attention wavered. She was looking at a man in the corner whose body was wrapped around someone smaller. He must have sensed Victorine’s stare as he let go of his companion and looked directly at us. His left cheek had what appeared from a distance t