Against Nature (30 page)

2
.
old Chick-Pea
: Cicero, whose name in Latin means chick-pea.

3
.
Petronius… Satyricon
: Des Esseintes uses Petronius, author of
The Satyricon
, to upbraid Naturalist writing.

4
.
Although he was perfectly at home with theological problems
: From here onwards, Remy de Gourmont notes, Huysmans borrowed freely (or as Gourmont put it, ‘stole') from Adolphe Ebert's
Histoire générale de la littérature du Moyen Age en Occident (General History of Medieval Literature in the West
, published in French translation in 1883). Marc Fumaroli's Gallimard edition copiously annotates the chapter, and makes use of a definitive article on Huysmans and Latin literature: Jean Céard, ‘Des Esseintes et la décadence latine',
Studi Francesi
, 65–6 (May–December 1978), pp. 297–310.

5
.
he stacked the rest of his shelves… the present day
: After the seemingly exhaustive account in this chapter, we are brought abruptly to the present day. Des Esseintes leaves out swathes of historical development, all the while insisting on the continuity
of the Decadence and making an implicit link between the Latin ‘Decadence' and his own period. This chapter, with its critical values and polemical statements, forms a counterpart to the chapters on modern sacred and profane literature that occur later in the novel.

1
.
and Des Esseintes accordingly decided… gold
: This episode is based on Montesquiou's gold-plated and jewel-encrusted tortoise. Edmond de Goncourt in a diary entry for 14 June 1882 calls it a ‘walking
bibelot
', and one of the poems in Montesquiou's collection
Les Hortensias bleus (Blue Hydrangeas
) mentions the unhappy creature.

2
.
This collection… he called his mouth organ
: Des Esseintes' ‘mouth organ', an early version of a cocktail mixer, seems to have been based on a reading of Polycarpe Poncelet's
Chimie du goûtet del'odorat (Chemistry of Taste and Smell, 1755
). The following passage is also permeated with Baudelaire's ideas about correspondence and the harmonious joining of different orders of sensation.

1
.
He had bought Moreau's two masterpieces… Salome
: The two works by Gustave Moreau (1826–98) that Des Esseintes possesses –
Salome Dancing Before Herod
and
The Apparition
– had been exhibited at the 1876 Salon and the 1878 Exposition universelle in Paris. Huysmans wrote an essay on Moreau in his book of art criticism
Certains
, and Moreau, despite being one of the most celebrated painters of the period, remained outside the various literary groupings that laid claim to his images. For Des Esseintes Moreau transcends history but also, significantly, genealogy: he has ‘no real ancestors and no possible descendants'.

2
.
like Salammbô's
: The priestess in Flaubert's exotic novel
Salammbô
(1862), set in Carthage after the first Punic war and describing the revolt of Carthage's mercenary army.

3
.
Jan Luyken
: Dutch engraver (1649–1712), on whom Huysmans wrote an essay in
Certains
. Huysmans, like Des Esseintes, was attracted to the sensuality of the broken or suffering body.

4
.
Bresdin's Comedy of Death
: Rodolphe Bresdin (1822–85) was a hallucinatory artist and engraver, and a friend of Gautier and
Baudelaire. Montesquiou had written two pamphlets on Bresdin's life and work. His
Comedy of Death
appeared in 1854.

5
.
These were all signed Odilon Redon
: Odilon Redon (1840–1916) illustrated the works of, among others, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Mallarmé and Poe (his illustrations have appeared on the covers of Penguin Classics Poe editions). Redon's
Homage to Goya
, a series of lithographs, appeared in 1885. Huysmans reviewed them in the
Revue indépendante
and wrote an essay on Redon entitled ‘Le Monstre' (‘The Monster') in
Certains
, his 1887 book of art criticism.

6
.
Proverbs by Goya
: This painting by Goya (1746–1828) was a favourite of Baudelaire, who wrote enthusiastically on Goya's ability to wring the beautiful from the ugly.

7
.
Theotocopuli
: Domenikos Theotokopoulos (1541–1614), better known as El Greco.

1
.
De Laude Castitatis… Bishop of Vienne
:
De consolatoria laude Castitis ad Fuscinam sororem (In Praise of Chastity
), by Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, has already been mentioned in Des Esseintes' library inventory of
chapter III
.

1
.
the Dominican Lacordaire… Sorrèze
: Jean-Baptiste-Henri Lacordaire (1802–61) was a politically active preacher whose best-known work is his
Conférences
. He merged a belief that faith was compatible with reason with an emphasis on the mysticism of Christianity. The college of Sorrèze was a famous educational establishment in Tarn.

2
.
De Quincey
: The work of Thomas De Quincey had been translated by the Romantic poet Alfred de Musset in 1818, and had profoundly affected Baudelaire (who adapted parts of
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
in his
Paradis artificiels
).

3
.
ideas of monstrous depravity… abused
: Huysmans studied and took long documentary notes on black masses, and satanism was partly the subject of his book,
Là-Bas (The Damned
, 1891).

4
.
Schopenhauer… came nearer to the truth
: Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), the German philosopher and contemporary of Hegel, was extraordinarily influential in France at the time. His
World as Will and Idea
and
Aphorisms
had massive impact. A
key book in Schopenhauer reception is Elme-Marie Caro's
Le Pessimisme au XIXe siècle: Léopardi, Schopenhauer, Hartmann (Pessimism in the Nineteenth Century
, 1878), and Théodule Ribot's
La Philosophie de Schopenhauer
(1874). In his preface of 1903, Huysmans reassesses his attraction to Schopenhauer as a poor substitute for Christian faith.

5
.
Imitation of Christ
:
The Imitation of Christ
was written by Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471). As he later does in his 1903 preface, Huysmans makes the connection between Schopenhaurean resignation and the resigned sorrow of Thomas à Kempis.

6
.
hydropathic treatment
: Hydrotherapy was at the time a treatment for neurosis. Fumaroli notes the autobiographical dimension to this section, referring to Huysmans' description in a letter to Zola (April 1882) of gruelling hydrotherapeutic treatment.

1
.
It amused him… bourgeois blooms
: The Baudelairean strain in this is clear. Baudelaire's poems had been described as ‘flowers of evil sprung in the hothouses of decadence', and the hothouse became the symbol of the rare, etiolated, unnatural growths of which the Decadents were fond. The ultimate expression of hothouse imagery is Maeterlinck's poems
Serres chaudes (Hothouses
, 1889), but the image can be found in authors as different as Zola and Laforgue. We may note that even here, with the sensuality of the plants, Des Esseintes reads the labels: even these plants are textually interpreted.

2
.
tired of artificial flowers… fakes
: In this about-turn the logic of artifice comes to a sinister but slightly comical halt, like the tortoise.

3
.
It all comes down to syphilis in the end
: Syphilitic heredity is another means for the theme of heredity to wind its way into the book. Continuity in
Against Nature
is often figured as a decline or an undermining virus, and this dream of syphilis rampaging through the ages is one memorable instance, as the disease links epochs, generations and social classes.

1
.
the solanaceae of literature
: Solanaceous refers mainly to narcotic (and occasionally poisonous) plants, and Huysmans here evokes a kind of narcotic writing.

2
.
Siraudin
: A famous confectioner, frequented also by the heroine of Edmond de Goncourt's
La Faustin
(1882).

3
.
the Circus
: The fascination with circus performers (such as Miss Urania) is characteristic of the late nineteenth century: Banville, Villiers and the Goncourt brothers in
Les Frères Zemganno (The Zemganno Brothers
, 1879) had explored the life and art of acrobats and circus performers.

4
.
dialogue of the Chimera and the Sphinx
: The dialogue occurs in Flaubert's
La tentation de St Antoine (The Temptation of Saint Antony
).

5
.
Des Esseintes ran his eyes over him
: Marc Fumaroli notes that this episode was what attracted the young decadent poet and novelist Jean Lorrain to Huysmans. Lorrain, author of
Monsieur Phocas
, was Huysmans' guide to underground Paris.

1
.
For years now he had been an expert in the science of perfumes
: Huysmans researched his perfumes, like his Latin poets, exhaustively. Among the sources for this chapter are S. Piesse,
Des Odeurs, des parfums, et des cosmétiques (Smells, Perfumes and Cosmetics
, 1877) and the catalogue
Produits spéciaux recommandés de Violet, parfumeur brèveté fournisseur de toutes les cours étrangères (Special Products Recommended by Violet, Certified Perfumier, Supplier of All Foreign Courts
, 1874). Des Esseintes is saturated with Baudelairean ideas: exegete of scents, interpreter of olfactory symphonies, he is also, thanks to his books and treatises, a technician of perfume. Scents and perfumes represent both essences (thereby endorsing Des Esseintes' search for the distillation and concentration) and fakes (thereby satisfying his need for artifice). In this chapter, as throughout
Against Nature
, there is an unresolvable tension between the two.

2
.
Victor Hugo and Gautier
: Victor Hugo (1802–85) and Théophile Gautier (1811–72) were among the greatest poets of the nineteenth century, pioneering Romantics and literary radicals. Gautier was the dedicatee of Baudelaire's
Les Fleurs du mal
and author of
Emaux et Camées (Enamels and Gemstones
, 1852) and the novel
Mademoiselle de Maupin
as well as volumes of fantastical tales and innumerable critical and journalistic essays. He became an exponent of ‘
l'art pour l'art
' and was prized by the Symbolists (and later by Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot) for his
collection
Emaux et camées
. Hugo was the great figure of French literature, massively popular and active in every genre, author of, among much else,
Notre-Dame de Paris
and
Les Misérables
, the poetry collection
Les Orientales
and the play
Hernani
.

3
.
its Malesherbes, its Boileaus, its Andrieux, its Baour-Lormians
: François Malherbe (1555–1628) was an influential French poet who prized clarity and economy in verse. Nicolas Boileau (1636–1711), author of
Art poétique
, was one of the great neo-classical poets. François Guillaume Andrieux (1759–1833) and Pierre François Marie Baour-Lormian (1770–1854) were reactionary classicists who were against the early Romantics. Baour-Lormian wrote the influential
Le Classique et le Romantique (Classicism and Romanticism
) in 1825.

4
.
Thémidore
: Novel (1745) by Claude Godard d'Aucour.

5
.
Pantin was there… gaze was directed
: From the artificial tropics of the hothouse and the scents of hay and flowers, Des Esseintes moves to the reality of Pantin, on the industrial margins of Paris.

1
.
Galignani's Messenger
: An English-language daily in Paris. The paper carried a review of
Against Nature
, describing it as ‘a work of an entirely new but by no means healthy tendency', leaving ‘a decidedly bitter taste' (23 May 1884).

2
.
comic scenes by Du Maurier or John Leech… Raphael
: George Du Maurier (1834–96), John Leech (1817–64) and Randolph Caldecott (1846–86), were English artists and caricaturists. John Everett Millais (1829–96) and George Frederick Watts were Pre-Raphaelite painters. Some of them Huysmans had seen exhibited at the Salon of 1881 and discusses in his 1883 volume of art criticism,
L'Art moderne
.

3
.
Little Dorrit, Dora Copperfield or Tom Pinch's sister Ruth
: The references are to characters from Dickens.

4
.
The spine-chilling nightmare of the cask of Amontillado
: Des Esseintes is thinking of Poe's ‘The Cask of Amontillado' (1846).

5
.
I've been steeped in English life… change of locality
: Des Esseintes' London, the perfect literary image, is an amalgam of the Pre-Raphaelites, De Quincey and Dickens, but also of commodities and labels. With Des Esseintes' ‘journey' to England we may compare Oscar Wilde's
The Decay of Lying
: ‘if you desire to see a Japanese effect, you will not behave like a tourist and go
to Tokio. On the contrary, you will stay at home and steep yourself in the work of certain Japanese artists…'

1
.
Archelaus… Arnaud de Villanova
: Archelaus was a fifth-century
BC
Greek poet and alchemist. Albertus Magnus was a medieval German philosopher. Raymond Lully (1233–1315) was a Catalan poet and philosopher. Villanova was a Spanish alchemist and astrologer of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.