"What are you talking about?"
"The paintings here don't provide enough examples. I've seen his work in Paris and Rome, in Zurich and London. I've borrowed from my parents to the limits of their patience and my conscience. But I've seen, and I know what I have to do. The anguished faces began in 1889, when Van Dorn left Paris in disgrace. His early paintings were abysmal. He settled in La Verge in the south of France. Six months later, his genius suddenly exploded. In a frenzy, he painted. He returned to Paris. He showed his work, but no one appreciated it. He kept painting, kept showing. Still no one appreciated it. He returned to La Verge, reached the peak of his genius, and went totally insane. He had to be committed to an asylum, but not before he stabbed out his eyes. That's my dissertation. I intend to parallel his course. To match his paintings with his biography, to show how the faces increased and became more severe as his madness worsened. I want to dramatize the turmoil in his soul as he imposed his twisted vision on each landscape."
It was typical of Myers to take an excessive attitude and make it even more excessive. Don't misunderstand. His discovery was important. But he didn't know when to stop. I'm not an art historian, but I've read enough to know that what's called "psychological criticism," the attempt to analyze great art as a manifestation of neuroses, is considered off-the-wall. If Myers handed Stuyvesant a psychological dissertation, the pompous bastard would have a fit.
That was one misgiving I had about what Myers planned to do with his discovery. Another troubled me more. I intend to parallel Van Dorn's course, he'd said. After we left the museum and walked through Central Park, I realized how literally Myers meant it.
"I'm going to southern France," he said.
I stared in surprise. "You don't mean – "
" La Verge? That's right. I want to write my dissertation there."
"But – "
"What place could be more appropriate? It's the village where Van Dorn suffered his nervous breakdown and eventually went insane. If it's possible, I'll even rent the same room he did."
"Myers, this sounds too far out, even for you."
"But it makes perfect sense. I need to immerse myself. I need atmosphere, a sense of history. So I can put myself in the mood to write."
"The last time you immersed yourself, you crammed your room with Van Dorn prints, didn't sleep, didn't eat, didn't bathe. I hope – "
"I admit I got too involved. But last time I didn't know what I was looking for. Now that I've found it, I'm in good shape."
"You look strung out to me."
"An optical illusion." Myers grinned.
"Come on, I'll treat you to drinks and dinner."
"Sorry. Can't. I've got a plane to catch."
"You're leaving tonight? But I haven't seen you since – "
"You can buy me that dinner when I finish the dissertation."
I never did. I saw him only one more time. Because of the letter he sent two months later. Or asked his nurse to send. She wrote down what he'd said and added an explanation of her own. He'd blinded himself, of course.
You were right. Shouldn't have gone. But when did I ever take advice? Always knew better, didn't I? Now it's too late. What I showed you that day at the Met – God help me, there's so much more. Found the truth.
Can't bear it. Don't make my mistake. Don't look ever again, I beg you, at Van Dorn's paintings. Can't stand the pain. Need a break.
Going home. Stay cool. Paint well. Love you, pal.
Your friend forever,
Myers
In her postscript, the nurse apologized for her English. She sometimes took care of aged Americans on the Riviera, she said, and had to learn the language. But she understood what she heard better than she could speak it or write it, and hoped that what she'd written made sense. It didn't, but that wasn't her fault. Myers had been in great pain, sedated with morphine, not thinking clearly, she said. The miracle was that he'd managed to be coherent at all.
Your friend was staying at our only hotel. The manager says that he slept little and ate even less. His research was obsessive. He filled his room with reproductions of Van Dorn's work. He tried to duplicate Van Dorn's daily schedule. He demanded paints and canvas, refused all meals, and wouldn't answer his door. Three days ago, a scream woke the manager. The door was blocked. It took three men to break it down. Your friend used the sharp end of a paintbrush to stab out his eyes.
The clinic here is excellent. Physically your friend will recover, although he will never see again. But I worry about his mind.
Myers had said he was going home. It had taken a week for the letter to reach me. I assumed his parents would have been informed immediately by phone or telegram. He was probably back in the States by now. I knew his parents lived in Denver, but I didn't know their first names or address, so I got in touch with information and phoned every Myers in Denver until I made contact. Not with his parents but with a family friend watching their house. Myers hadn't been flown to the States. His parents had gone to the south of France. I caught the next available plane. Not that it matters, but I was supposed to be married that weekend.
La Verge is fifty kilometers inland from Nice. I hired a driver. The road curved through olive-tree orchards and farmland, crested cypress-covered hills, and often skirted cliffs. Passing one of the orchards, I had the eerie conviction that I'd seen it before. Entering La Verge, my déjà vu strengthened. The village seemed trapped in the nineteenth century. Except for phone poles and power lines, it looked exactly as Van Dorn had painted it. I recognized the narrow, cobbled streets and rustic shops that Van Dorn had made famous. I asked directions. It wasn't hard to find Myers and his parents.
The final time I saw my friend, the undertaker was putting the lid on his coffin. I had trouble sorting out the details, but despite my burning tears, I gradually came to understand that the local clinic was as good as the nurse had assured me in her note. All things being equal, he would have lived.
But the damage to his mind had been another matter. He'd complained of headaches. He'd also become increasingly distressed. Even morphine hadn't helped. He'd been left alone only for a minute, appearing to be asleep. In that brief interval, he had managed to stagger from his bed, grope across the room, and find a pair of scissors. Yanking off his bandages, he'd jabbed the scissors into an empty eye socket and tried to ream out his brain. He'd collapsed before accomplishing his purpose, but the damage had been sufficient. Death had taken two days.
His parents were pale, incoherent with shock. I somehow controlled my own shock enough to try to comfort them. Despite the blur of those terrible hours, I remember noticing the kind of irrelevance that signals the mind's attempt to reassert normality. Myers's father wore Gucci loafers and a gold Rolex watch. In grad school, Myers had lived on a strict budget. I had no idea he came from wealthy parents.
I helped them make arrangements to fly his body back to the States. I went to Nice with them and stayed by their side as they watched the crate that contained his coffin being loaded into the baggage compartment of the plane. I shook their hands and hugged them. I waited as they sobbed and trudged down the boarding tunnel. An hour later, I was back in La Verge.
I returned because of a promise. I wanted to ease his parents' suffering – and my own. Because I'd been his friend. "You've got too much to take care of," I had said to his parents. "The long trip home. The arrangements for the funeral." My throat had felt choked. "Let me help. I'll settle things here, pay whatever bills he owes, pack up his clothes and…" I had taken a deep breath. "And his books and whatever else he had and send them home to you. Let me do that. I'd consider it a kindness. Please. I need to do something."