Jessie Lipscomb
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Montdevergues, 2nd of February 1944
In the five years I had been at Montdevergues, Camille had received no visitors other than her brother Paul. Not even her mother or sister, not a single other person had come. I knew that it was strictly prohibited, but I found it rather peculiar that in those five long years no one had tried to visit her or had really pursued the matter, especially surprising when you consider that towards the end of the last century, Camille had been widely recognised in artistic circles. In the archives of the asylum, a few sporadic visits had been recorded from other relatives and from an art critic friend of hers. I suspected that the ban had been made stricter so as to fully isolate Camille.
But the last days of spring of 1929 brought with them a most unexpected visitor: Jessie Lipscomb, an acclaimed English sculptress. Disregarding the strict instructions that Louise-Athanaïse had sent to me by letter, and taking advantage of her delicate health that made it unlikely she would stir merely to continue tormenting her daughter, I allowed that graceful woman, who must have been around 70, to meet with Camille. She explained that they had shared a studio for years, during the time that Rodin was teaching. Then they had grown apart after some disagreement, until eventually losing contact altogether.
-“I never stopped thinking of her all these years,” she said, taking my hand in my office, with such feeling and sincerity that it shook my delicate conscience.
-“I see,” I said, trying to ease what I perceived as a feeling of guilt that she still needed to purge herself of.
Jessie glanced quickly at her husband, William Elborne, who had quietly accompanied her, before moving closer, almost pressing herself into me. Despite her age, her gestures were delicate and she moved almost sensually, revealing something of the vivacious, ambitious young woman she had once been, now hidden behind the aged appearance before me now.
-“Mr. Faret, I want you to tell me the truth, no beating about the bush... In your opinion, is my good friend Cam mad?”
I was bewildered, and my face must have given away my alarm, as both Jessie and her husband peered at me more closely, as though trying to catch a glimpse of the answer hidden beneath my skin.
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-“That's a very delicate question, and not a very easy one to answer,” I stuttered, without really knowing if the truth would have been more appropriate.
Despite having only just met, Jessie Lipscomb gripped my arm, breaking down any barriers of the circumstances and our brief acquaintance.
-“Stop talking drivel and answer my question, please, I'm too old to be wasting precious time,” she implored, in a tone of voice that meant I could only be silent or honest.
-“Why do you want to know my opinion?” I asked, trying to gain time.
-“Because I am haunted by the terrible thought that she's locked up here and that she's really as sane as any of us right now in this office, you see? It's just awful, I would love you to tell me it's not so, that Cam is completely mad and that everything that has happened to her is a disgrace, but at least a well-founded disgrace.”
-“I understand you perfectly,” I replied, bowing my head. I then paused for a good while before I continued. It was time to be frank. “I ask that what I'm about to tell you does not leave this room.”
Jessie pulled away, taken aback, bringing a hand to her mouth as she gently nodded her head sensing that perhaps it would have been better not to have pushed me.
-“Say no more,” said William Elborne, with the conviction of an English gentleman, cutting in before his silent, petrified wife.
-“Mrs. Lipscomb, unfortunately I can do nothing but confirm your worst fears. The only thing that torments Miss Claudel's mind now is the fact she is confined in this asylum,” I said, rather recklessly, in the hope that perhaps this influential and foreign lady could intercede for poor Camille.
Jessie embraced her husband and took a few moments to compose herself. I could clearly see that her worst nightmares had left their comfortable lair as dreams to take root in the real world, becoming tangible and making every event irreversible.
-“May I be alone with her?” she almost begged me, without letting go of her husband.
-“Take all the time you need,” I replied, feeling better that the worst of it was over.
I accompanied Ms. Lipscomb and her husband to the room where Camille was staying. Out of prudence, I waited outside with the guard and William Elborne, who in the end had preferred to give the ladies some privacy.
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-“My wife forgot about these documents, but you may think it better not to give them to Miss Claudel,” said William, handing me a folder with some newspaper clippings.
-“May I?” I asked, removing some of the pieces of paper with trembling hands, knowing they would be about Camille.
-“Please,”
I glanced over the articles, cut from newspapers and art magazines dating back to 1898 and 1905, but quickly found myself engrossed in them in absolute awe. Camille Claude was praised, she was compared to Auguste Rodin himself, and some critics had even gone as far as to write that her lines were cleaner and her concepts bolder. As I read, totally consumed by the articles, inside I was trembling with emotion. Each time I read Camille's name attached to one of her pieces, titles that I barely recognised such as Sakountala, Clotho, L'abandon, La Valse or L'Age Mûr, and after countless compliments and praises, I felt strangely relieved, even absurdly appreciated. It was the sudden realisation that I had been right all along, that indeed, behind this old lady, abandoned to her fate, was someone exceptional and a genius. I wanted to belong to that far off, distant time, to have lived those years before I had even been born. I spent nearly two hours stood up reading the clippings that Jessie Lipscomb's husband had so kindly given to me. I can still remember off by heart some parts, perhaps the ones that moved me the most, of a beautiful, long article by a Mathias Morhardt, that I must have read about three times:
“Miss Camille Claudel is closer to Shakespeare than to Eduoard Pailleron. Nature, as seen by her and expressed through her work, immediately takes on a grandeur, a veritable majesty” and “The more we admire her work, the more we love it, the more we understand it and the more we become intoxicated by the true euphoria of Beauty.” Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. More than anyone else that man was able to transmit the extraordinary feelings that were aroused in my soul as I looked at Camille's work, so familiar to me now.
-“Mr. Faret, Mr. Faret! Are you alright?” a distant voice said suddenly, coming from an anxious guard.
I found myself leaning against the wall, dizzy, the fingers of my right hand hardly managing to hold onto the articles, whilst the rest had slipped and scattered about the corridor. I was dazed and shaken. I tried to pull myself together, rather hot and embarrassed.
-“I'm fine, thank you, I'm absolutely fine. It was just...” my voice trailed off, as even I could find no reason for my brief fainting spell.
William Elborne began to gather the clippings from the floor as I tried to compose myself, just as Jessie Lipscomb came out of Camille's room, closing the door behind her. As it shut, she burst into tears. Between her husband and myself we managed to bring her to my office, although neither he nor I could appease her.
-“It's a crime, a despicable crime!” Jessie exclaimed, waving her hand in front of my eyes before seeking refuge in the arms of William Elborne.
-“I can assure you, Ms. Lipscomb, that this is completely out of my hands. This affair is beyond my control, and is entirely to do with Miss Claudel's own family,” I replied, like a coward, trying to get others, in this case Jessie and her husband, to deal with what I had never been capable of.
-“Oh, Will, let's leave this awful place at once,” said Jessie, pulling her husband out of my office.
I accompanied them towards the entrance of Montdevergues, where in a matter of minutes a car would whisk them away far from the asylum walls, never to return. William took a few steps back towards me to hand me the articles I had just been reading and that had left such a lasting impression on me.
-“So, what shall it be... Will you keep them or shall I take them back to England?”
-“Take them, please. At this point they will only make matters worse,” I replied firmly, in an unfaltering voice.
After Jessie and William left, the asylum was submerged in a thick blanket of silence, as though life had ceased to exist in the wings, in the gardens, or anywhere. I began to wander aimlessly, carrying inside me all the pain and tremendous confusion that had broken Camille's spirit. At least I knew there was one other person in the world that shared my impotence and torture. And that thought was somewhat of a relief.