On Christmas Eve, 1888,
in the small Provençal town of Arles,
police found a young Dutch émigré artist in his bed,
bleeding from the head,
self-bandaged and semi-conscious,
in a run-down residence known as,
on account of its peeling exterior,
the Yellow House.
A few hours before,
the Dutchman had given his severed ear
(or just its lower lobe — stories differ)
wrapped as a gift
to a whore named Rachel
in a maison de tolérance (a bordello)
with the words…
‘Keep this object like a treasure.”

She passed out upon unwrapping it.