Art Criticism - The State University of New York

Huysmans parallels the life of De Rais with the personal temptations
of Durtal. He chronicles Durtal's desire to escape ennui through extraordinary
sexual and spiritual experience. As Durtal is writing, he begins to receive anonymous
letters from a woman. She flagrantly praises his work and describes her
ambivalence in meeting him. Huysmans details this ambivalence in Durtal as
well. The characters both know that meeting would destroy the exoticized
fantasy, the "chimera" which Durtal has envisioned between her letters.
Huysmans chose this word for its dual meaning as an unrealistic fantasy and
as a fire-breathing she-monster. In this way, his protagonist can imagine extraordinary
scenarios with an unknown woman and later resent her for setting
fire to his fantasy as he meets her in the flesh. He believes of his chimera, "that
with a woman as passionate as this one seemed to be, he would experience
superhuman sensations and novel abandon."2 By way of Durtal's chimera,
Huysmans relates woman to what can be seen as a sexual anti-climax. The idea
that the rarefied, essentialized and artificial is cleaner and more satisfying than
reality is a decadent hallmark and, unfortunately for woman, a way in which
man can hold her responsible for the dissatisfaction inherent in his unrealistic
fantasy.
Feverishly distracted, Durtal becomes unable to work and consents
to a meeting. When the woman turns out to be Mme. Chantelouve, the wife of
a well known Parisian whose salons Durtal has attended, he is not displeased
with her looks, though his chimera is extinguished. In between her visits,
however, he becomes re-infatuated with her reality. His desire builds up again
and they eventually consummate the relationship. As Gilles de Rais replaced
one unsatisfying sadistic act for one more rarefied, Durtal finds it is not enough
to carryon a mere flirtation; he must sexually possess Mme. Chantelouve. In
accordance with the decadent theory set forth, the reality of sex is an enormous
let down. Sex of the caliber in Durtal's mind can never exist. Therefore, he
ends the affair, lamenting the next morning: "The flesh decisively does not
intend that one shall get along without it and indulge in out-of-the-world
pleasures which it can partake only on condition that it keep quiet. For the first
time, reviewing these turpitudes, he really understood the meaning of that now
obsolete word chastity, and he savoured it in all its pristine freshness. Just as
the man who has drunk too deeply the night before thinks, the morning after, of
drinking nothing but mineral water in future, so he dreamed, today, of pure.
affection far from a bed."3 Mme. Chantelouve does not bring a literal sexual
death to Durtal so much as she brings death to his richer-than-life fantasy. In
his ensuing ennui, Durtal looks for an extraordinary experience in his work.
Suddenly, it is no longer enough to do research from afar. He now feels that he
cannot continue without first hand knowledge of the Black Mass.
Durtal discovers that Mme. Chantelouve is a friend of Canon Docre,
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Art Criticism