Vincent

01. Why It Is

When he came out of his mother's womb, the doctor screamed, the midwife fainted, and when the nurse started to clean the infant off, the father said, "Don't bother. I'm going to drown it."

"No, Pierre!" the mother shrieked, sitting upright in bed. "Why? What is the matter? Give him to me! Let me see."

The midwife, who had somewhat recovered by then, handed the infant over with a grimace.

Ana Marie Lautrec choked in horror as she looked upon the aberrant body of her infant son.

His skin was practically transparent, and he was slick with water from the womb, she could see all his little veins and arteries, all the dark purple lines sprawling over the backs of his tiny hands, the pudge of his little arms, and all over his face. It was not like any infant's face she had ever seen before, it was covered in a grisly network of veins, even the tip of his nose was veiny-looking, and his mouth was open and red as he cried and squirmed and begged to be soothed.

"He's monstrous," whispered the mother. A tear slipped down her cheek.

"So I'll drown it," said Pierre, reaching for the bundle, but Ana Marie hugged it to her chest.

"No!" she said again, glaring venom at her husband. "Monstrous he may be, but he is my child, and you will never do him harm so long as either of you shall live!"

Ana Marie swore to protect him, but she never swore to love him.

The pregnancy had been difficult and the birth, likewise. Bearing the weird child had left Ana Marie weak and nervous, and when he came out looking like that, she resented him forever.

She had always known what her son's name would be. It was a very good name, a noble name, a name meant for a boy who would grow up to be a great man and do great things. It seemed too good a name for a genuine freak like he, but Ana Marie had loved this name for many years and had said it to him often while he was inside her womb, and it felt wrong to call him anything else.

Vincent Yosef Lautrec was not a strong infant. His appearance improved somewhat with time, but where they cut the cord, it took too long to heal, and he was prone to bruising and nosebleeds in the earliest years of his life. He was sensitive and needy, and his mother wanted little to do with him, and his father— well, his father would rue his birth even as his mother resented him: forever.

Once Vincent was looking that way, the Lautrecs moved out of Paris, and into the country. There they cohabited in a loveless existence in the French countryside, keeping their monstrous child away from the eyes of polite society. Pierre Lautrec, a spice merchant, was often away on expeditions and often stayed in Paris doing business. Once Vincent was born, he was away more and more often. Ana Marie looked after the child dutifully but she did resent him— he had affected her health, as well as her marriage. It was not his fault, but there he was all the same, so small and white and relentless, his infancy insistent upon being cared for, whether she wanted to or not.

Often she left him to the nursemaids. As he grew older, he was left to governesses and tutors, where he learned a deep love of the written word, and of music, and proved himself a prodigy in all. At a young age, he could read music as well as the written word, had memorized some of Shakespeare's simpler passages, could play the music in his lesson-books very well, and was learning a little Mozart, too. Perhaps his mother did not love him, but Vincent found love in the piano and the violin, and he found love in words, and he found love, of a sort, in the attentions of his tutors. It was not the tender kind of love that a person really requires to become whole, but it was something.