Beautiful Madness

Gauguin arrived on a cool afternoon in late October. Arles was painted orange and yellow with autumn leaves decorating the trees and blowing in the wind that day, when his train reached the town and he made his way to the small yellow house we would be sharing.

His arrival was joyous, and as he unpacked his things and settled himself we were both in high spirits, excited to see what the months ahead had in store for us.

The first few weeks went wonderfully, just as I could have hoped. We would leave in the morning and paint the scenery of the beautiful town, almost always working outside as we both
preferred to. We had our disagreements, but we both did our best to get over it quickly and go on with our work.

However, time passed and the weather grew cold and unpredictable, as did our relationship. As we were forced to work indoors more our spirits sank, leaving us both fighting bouts of depression. Arguments became more intense and much more frequent, where as the ability to leave them behind was no longer there.

By December I knew Gauguin was thinking about leaving. More than once I had to persuade him to stay, arguing that things would get better when the weather improved. Unfortunately, my arguments were not very affective. Just two days before Christmas, as we sat in a noisy bar, Gauguin told me he had made up his mind, and that he was returning to Paris.

"You can't leave!" I said very suddenly, attracting a number of stares from those around us. My mind was racing, the way he spoke told me there would be no persuading him to stay this time, but I still had to do something. I felt my temper rising, as he regarded me as someone lesser than him, saying he would leave later this week.

"No, you're staying here!" I said, standing up.

"I don't believe that is your decision." He said. His tone made me furious, he spoke to me as he would a child that was far to dumb to understand him. Driven by my sudden fury I grabbed my glass from the table and threw it in his face.

"You can't leave." I repeated.

He closed his eyes, and kept them closed for a very long time. When he at last opened them and wiped his face dry I could tell he was trying very hard not to get angry himself.

"Come on Vincent." He said impatiently. "I think you should go home now."

The walk home felt like a hike of a hundred miles as we walked in absolute silence. When we at last arrived at the house I went to my room and laid on my bed, my fury from the incident at the bar still burning within me. I thought perhaps if I laid there long enough it would go away, or at least lessen, but when this did not happen I went to confront Gauguin again.

It did not go so well this time.

* * *

Anger…Deep, raging anger, so strong it took control of my actions, and pushed away any idea I had of thinking straight. He was gone now. In my fury I'd driven away yet another person I'd once called a friend. Thoughts had escaped my mind again, slipping from my lips in the form of lies spoken in fear. Spoken in fear, and pain…Oh, the pain…It began in my core, near my heart, a burning flame spreading everywhere from the tips of my toes and fingers, to the top of my head. My head, and my ears…my ear…A hand reached to touch it and came back blood soaked. A drop of blood shattered the perfect silence as it hit the floor, followed by another, and another, and another…My memories were a foggy mess of nonsense, but a lot was implied by the bloody razor blade that sat on the table, and even more by what sat next to it…my ear…

After securing it in a bloodstained cloth I can remember nothing until I found myself to be stumbling down the empty street, the cloth still in my hands, the blood still dripping down my neck, my mind still a jumbled disarray of useless thoughts.

I walked down the empty street…only it wasn't empty. There was someone, a woman. A woman with black hair piled atop her head and lonely blue eyes on pale skin. The revealing dress she wore gave me a guess at her position in society. I strode up to her and shoved the bundle in her direction. She stared from the cloth, to me, and back to the cloth, hesitantly reaching out to take it. Her disgust and hatred towards me was so strong I could smell it wafting from her, a foul stench formed in prejudgment, but nothing I wasn't used to. She hesitantly unwound the dirty cloth I'd so kindly given to her.

Her screams echoed in my mind long after her pale skin had gone paler still and she'd tumbled backwards onto the pavement. Just another one scared off, I told myself as I walked back up the road through the nighttime silence. Another one like all the others. There's been so many others. Always coming but never staying. Never staying. Why would they not stay?

I kicked the wall in fury, now back inside. How many more? I thought, How many more will I drive away?

"How long until I have driven them all away!" I yelled into the darkness.
I lie in my bed, staring up at the ceiling and making no attempts to stop the flow of blood from my injured ear. Desperate thoughts raced through my mind until sleep finally took hold of me what seemed like years later. Just another one scared off…

* * *

"Where am I? Who are you?" I asked frantically, my speech coming in a strange mix of various languages before I settled on French. I lie in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, an unfamiliar person standing beside me… The memories of the night before rushed to me as quickly and with as much force as an ocean wave pounding the shore, and left just as suddenly. "Where's Paul?" I asked, completely ignoring that the doctor, or so I assumed him to be, was trying to answer the questions I'd already asked.

"I beg your pardon?" he said.

"Monsieur Gauguin, where is he?"

"I'm afraid―"

"I wish to speak to him." I said urgently. "Now. I must see him now."

"I was told to inform you he has returned to Paris."

I fell back onto the bed, paying no attention to the words of the doctor as he explained why I had been brought here.