Down There (Là-Bas)

by Joris-karl Huysmans

  Then suddenly she passed her hands over her forehead. "Ah!" she said, "I suffer cruelly when I think that he is there working. No, it would cost me too much remorse. What I say is foolish, but if he were a different man, a man who went out more and made conquests, it would not be so bad."

  He was irritated by the inconsequentiality of her plaints. Finally, feeling completely safe, he came closer to her and said, "You spoke of remorse, but whether we embark or whether we stand on the bank, isn't our guilt exactly the same?"

  "Yes, I know. My confessor talks to me like that-only more severely-but I think you are both wrong."

  He could not help laughing, and he said to himself, "Remorse is perhaps the condiment which keeps passion from being too unappetizing to the blasé." Then aloud he jestingly, "Speaking of confessors, if I were a casuist it seems to me I would try to invent new sins. I am not a casuist, and yet, having looked about a bit, I believe I have found a new sin."

  "You?" she said, laughing in turn. "Can I commit it?"

  He scrutinized her features. She had the expression of a greedy child.

  "You alone can answer that. Now I must admit that the sin is not absolutely new, for it fits into the known category of lust. But it has been neglected since pagan days, and was never well defined in any case."

  "Do not keep me in suspense. What is this sin?"

  "It isn't easy to explain. Nevertheless I will try. Lust, I believe, can be classified into: ordinary sin, sin against nature, bestiality, and let us add demoniality and sacrilege. Well, there is, in addition to these, what I shall call Pygmalionism, which embraces at the same time cerebral onanism and incest.

  "Imagine an artist falling in love with his child, his creation: with an Hérodiade, a Judith, a Helen, a Jeanne d'Arc, whom he has either described or painted, and evoking her, and finally possessing her in dream.

  "Well, this love is worse than normal incest. In the latter sin the guilty one commits only a half-offence, because his daughter is not born solely of his substance, but also of the flesh of another. Thus, logically, in incest there is a quasi-natural side, almost licit, because part of another person has entered into the engendering of the corpus delicti; while in Pygmalionism the father violates the child of his soul, of that which alone is purely and really his, which alone he can impregnate without the aid of another. The offence is, then, entire and complete. Now, is there not also disdain of nature, of the work of God, since the subject of the sin is no longer-as even in bestiality-a palpable and living creature, but an unreal being created by a projection of the desecrated talent, a being almost celestial, since, by genius, by artistry, it often becomes immortal?

  "Let us go further, if you wish. Suppose that an artist depicts a saint and becomes enamoured of her. Thus we have complications of crime against nature and of sacrilege. An enormity!"

  "Which, perhaps, is exquisite!"

  He was taken aback by the word she had used. She rose, opened the door, and called her husband. "Dear," she said, "Durtal has discovered a new sin!"

  "Surely not," said Chantelouve, his figure framed in the doorway. "The book of sins is an edition ne varietur. New sins cannot be invented, but old ones may be kept from falling into oblivion. Well, what is this sin of his?"

  Durtal explained the theory.

  "But it is simply a refined expression of succubacy. The consort is not one's work become animate, but a succubus which by night takes that form."

  "Admit, at any rate, that this cerebral hermaphrodism, self-fecundation, is a distinguished vice at least-being the privilege of the artist-a vice reserved for the elect, inaccessible to the mob."

  "If you like exclusive obscenity-" laughed Chantelouve. "But I must get back to the lives of the saints; the atmosphere is fresher and more benign. So excuse me, Durtal. I leave it to my wife to continue this Marivaux conversation about Satanism with you."

  He said it in the simplest, most debonair fashion to be imagined, but with just the slightest trace of irony.

  Which Durtal perceived. "It must be quite late," he thought, when the door closed after Chantelouve. He consulted his watch. Nearly eleven. He rose to take leave.

  "When shall I see you?" he murmured, very low.

  "Your apartment tomorrow night at nine."

  He looked at her with beseeching eyes. She understood, but wished to tease him. She kissed him maternally on the forehead, then consulted his eyes again. The expression of supplication must have remained unchanged, for she responded to their imploration by a long kiss which closed them, then came down to his lips, drinking their dolorous emotion.

  Then she rang and told her maid to light Durtal through the hall. He descended, satisfied that she had engaged herself to yield tomorrow night.

  CHAPTER XIII

  He began again, as on the other evening, to clean house and establish a methodical disorder. He slipped a cushion under the false disarray of the armchair, then he made roaring fires to have the rooms good and warm when she came.

  But he was without impatience. That silent promise which he had obtained, that Mme. Chantelouve would not leave him panting this night, moderated him. Now that his uncertainty was at an end, he no longer vibrated with the almost painful acuity which hitherto her malignant delays had provoked. He soothed himself by poking the fire. His mind was still full of her, but plethoric, content. When his thoughts stirred at all it was, at the very most, to revolve the question, "How shall I go about it, when the time comes, so as not to be ridiculous?" This question, which had so harassed him the other night, left him troubled but inert. He did not try to solve it, but decided to leave everything to chance, since the best planned strategy was almost always abortive.

  Then he revolted against himself, accused himself of stagnation, and walked up and down to shake himself out of a torpor which might have been attributed to the hot fire. Well, well, was it because he had had to wait so long that his desires had left him, or at least quit bothering him-no, they had not, why, he was yearning now for the moment when he might crush that woman! He thought he had the explanation of his lack of enthusiasm in the stage fright inseparable from any beginning. "It will not be really exquisite tonight until after the newness wears off and the grotesque with it. After I know her I shall be able to consort with her again without feeling solicitous about her and conscious of myself. I wish we were on that happy basis now."

  The cat, sitting on the table, cocked up its ears, gazed at the door with its black eyes, and fled. The bell rang and Durtal went to let her in.

  Her costume pleased him. He took off her furs. Her skirt was of a plum colour so dark that it was almost black, the material thick and supple, outlining her figure, squeezing her arms, making an hourglass of her waist, accentuating the curve of her hips and the bulge of her corset.

  "You are charming," he said, kissing her wrists, and he was pleased to find that his lips had accelerated her pulse. She did not speak, could hardly breathe. She was agitated and very pale.

  He sat down facing her. She looked at him with her mysterious, half sleepy eyes. He felt that he was falling in love all over again. He forgot his reasonings and his fears, and took acute pleasure in penetrating the mystery of these eyes and studying the vague smile of this dolorous mouth.

  He enlaced her fingers in his, and for the first time, in a low voice, he called her Hyacinthe.

  She listened, her breast heaving, her hands in a fever. Then in a supplicating voice, "I implore you," she said, "let us have none of that. Only desire is good. Oh, I am rational, I mean what I say. I thought it all out on the way here. I left him very sad tonight. If you knew how I feel-I went to church today and was afraid and hid myself when I saw my confessor-"

  These plaints he had heard before, and he said to himself, "You may sing whatever tune you want to, but you shall dance tonight." Aloud he answered in monosyllables as he continued to take possession of her.

  He rose, thinking she would do the same, or that if she remained seated he could better reach he
r lips by bending over her.

  "Your lips, your lips-the kiss you gave me last night-" he murmured, as his face came close to hers. She put up her lips and stood, and they embraced, but as his hands went seeking she recoiled.

  "Think how ridiculous it all is," she said in a low voice, "to undress, put on night clothes-and that silly scene, getting into bed!"

  He avoided declaring, but attempted, by an embrace which bent her over backward, to make her understand that she could spare herself those embarrassments. Tacitly, in his own turn, feeling her body stiffen under his fingers, he understood that she absolutely would not give herself in the room here, in front of the fire.

  "Oh well," she said, disengaging herself, "if you will have it!"

  He made way to allow her to go into the other room, and seeing that she desired to be alone he drew the portière.

  Sitting before the fire he reflected. Perhaps he ought to have pulled down the bed covers, and not left her the task, but without doubt the action would have been too direct, too obvious a hint. Ah! and that water heater! He took it and, keeping away from the bedroom door, went to the bathroom, placed the heater on the toilet table, and then, swiftly, he set out the rice powder box, the perfumes, the combs, and, returning into his study, he listened.

  She was making as little noise as possible, walking on tiptoe as if in the presence of the dead. She blew out the candles, doubtless wishing no more light than the rosy glow of the hearth.

  He felt positively annihilated. The irritating impression of the lips and eyes of Hyacinthe was far from him now. She was nothing but a woman, like any other, undressing in a man's room. Memories of similar scenes overwhelmed him. He remembered girls who like her had crept about on the carpet so as not to be heard, and who had stopped short, ashamed, for a whole second, if they bumped against the water pitcher. And then, what good was this going to do him? Now that she was yielding he no longer desired her! Disillusion had come even before possession, not waiting, as usual, till afterward. He was distressed to the point of tears.

  The frightened cat glided under the curtain, ran from one room to the other, and finally came back to his master and jumped onto his knees. Caressing him, Durtal said to himself, "Decidedly, she was right when she refused. It will be grotesque, atrocious. I was wrong to insist, but no, it's her fault, too. She must have wanted to do this or she wouldn't have come. What a fool to think she could aggravate passion by delay. She is fearfully clumsy. A moment ago when I was embracing her and really was aroused, it would perhaps have been delicious, but now! And what do I look like? A young bridegroom waiting-or a green country boy. Oh God, how stupid! Well," he said, straining his ears and hearing no sound from the other room, "she's in bed. I must go in.

  "I suppose it took her all this time to unharness herself from her corset. She was a fool to wear one," he concluded, when, drawing the curtain, he stepped into the other room.

  Mme. Chantelouve was buried under the thick coverlet, her mouth half-open and her eyes closed; but he saw that she was peering at him through the fringe of her blonde eyelashes. He sat down on the edge of the bed. She huddled up, drawing the cover over her chin.

  "Cold, dear?"

  "No," and she opened wide her eyes, which flashed sparks.

  He undressed, casting a rapid glance at Hyacinthe's face. It was hidden in the darkness, but was sometimes revealed by a flare of the red hot fire, as a stick, half consumed and smouldering, would suddenly burst into flame. Swiftly he slipped between the covers. He clasped a corpse; a body so cold that it froze him, but the woman's lips were burning as she silently gnawed his features. He lay stupified in the grip of this body wound around his own, supple as the… and hard! He could not move; he could not speak for the shower of kisses traveling over his face. Finally, he succeeded in disengaging himself, and, with his free arm he sought her; then suddenly, while she devoured his lips he felt a nervous inhibition, and, naturally, without profit, he withdrew.

  "I detest you!" she exclaimed.

  "Why?"

  "I detest you!"

  He wanted to cry out, "And I you!" He was exasperated, and would have given all he owned to get her to dress and go home.

  The fire was burning low, unflickering. Appeased, now, he sat up and looked into the darkness. He would have liked to get up and find another nightshirt, because the one he had on was tearing and getting in his way. But Hyacinthe was lying on top of it-then he reflected that the bed was deranged and the thought affected him, because he liked to be snug in winter, and knowing himself incapable of respreading the covers, he foresaw a cold night.

  Once more, he was enlaced; the gripe of the woman's on his own was renewed; rational, this time, he attended to her and crushed her with mighty caresses. In a changed voice, lower, more guttural, she uttered ignoble things and silly cries which gave him pain-"My dear!-oh, hon!-oh I can't stand it!"-aroused nevertheless, he took this body which creaked as it writhed, and he experienced the extraordinary sensation of a spasmodic burning within a swaddle of ice-packs.

  He finally jumped over her, out of bed, and lighted the candles. On the dresser the cat sat motionless, considering Durtal and Mme. Chantelouve alternately. Durtal saw an inexpressible mockery in those black eyes and, irritated, chased the beast away.

  He put some more wood on the fire, dressed, and started to leave the room. Hyacinthe called him gently, in her usual voice. He approached the bed. She threw her arms around his neck and hung there, kissing him hungrily. Then sinking back and putting her arms under the cover, she said, "The deed is done. Now will you love me any better?"

  He did not have the heart to answer. Ah yes, his disillusion was complete. The satiety following justified his lack of appetite preceding. She revolted him, horrified him. Was it possible to have so desired a woman, only to come to-that? He had idealized her in his transports, he had dreamed in her eyes-he knew not what! He had wished to exalt himself with her, to rise higher than the delirious ravenings of the senses, to soar out of the world into joys supernal and unexplored. And his dream had been shattered. He remained fettered to earth. Was there no means of escaping out of one's self, out of earthly limitations, and attaining an upper ether where the soul, ravished, would glory in its giddy flight?

  Ah, the lesson was hard and decisive. For having one time hoped so much, what regrets, what a tumble! Decidedly, Reality does not pardon him who despises her; she avenges herself by shattering the dream and trampling it and casting the fragments into a cesspool.

  "Don't be vexed, dear, because it is taking me so long," said Mme. Chantelouve behind the curtain.

  He thought crudely, "I wish you would get to hell out of here," and aloud he asked politely if she had need of his services.

  "She was so mysterious, so enticing," he resumed to himself. "Her eyes, remote, deep as space, and reflecting cemeteries and festivals at the same time. And she has shown herself up for all she is, within an hour. I have seen a new Hyacinthe, talking like a silly little milliner in heat. All the nastinesses of women unite in her to exasperate me."

  After a thoughtful silence he concluded, "I must be young indeed to have lost my head the way I did."

  As if echoing his thought, Mme. Chantelouve, coming out through the portière, laughed nervously and said, "A woman of my age doing a mad thing like that!" She looked at him, and though he forced a smile she understood.

  "You will sleep tonight," she said, sadly, alluding to Durtal's former complaints of sleeplessness on her account.

  He begged her to sit down and warm herself, but she said she was not cold.

  "Why, in spite of the warmth of the room you were cold as ice!"

  "Oh, I am always that way. Winter and summer my flesh is chilly."

  He thought that in August this frigid body might be agreeable, but now!

  He offered her some bonbons, which she refused, then she said she would take a sip of the alkermes, which he poured into a tiny silver goblet. She took just a drop, and amicably they discussed the tas
te of this preparation, in which she recognized an aroma of clove, tempered by flower of cinnamon moistened with distillate of rose water.

  Then he became silent.

  "My poor dear," she said, "how I should love him if he were more confiding and not always on his guard."

  He asked her to explain herself.

  "Why, I mean that you can't forget yourself and simply let yourself be loved. Alas, you were reasoning all the time-"

  "I was not!"

  She kissed him tenderly. "You see I love you, anyway." And he was surprised to see how sad and moved she looked, and he observed a sort of frightened gratitude in her eyes.

  "She is easily satisfied," he said to himself.

  "What are you thinking about?"

  "You!"

  She sighed. Then, "What time is it?"

  "Half past ten."

  "I must go. He is waiting for me. No, don't say anything-"

  She passed her hands over her cheeks. He seized her gently by the waist and kissed her, holding her thus enlaced until they were at the door.

  "You will come again soon, won't you?"

  "Yes… Yes."

  He returned to the fireside.

  "Oof! it's done," he thought, in a whirl of confused emotions. His vanity was satisfied, his selfesteem was no longer bleeding, he had attained his ends and possessed this woman. Moreover, her spell over him had lost its force. He was regaining his entire liberty of mind, but who could tell what trouble this liaison had yet in store for him? Then, in spite of everything, he softened.

  After all, what could he reproach her with? She loved as well as she could. She was, indeed, ardent and plaintive. Even this dualism of a mistress who was a low cocotte in bed and a fine lady when dressed-or no, too intelligent to be called a fine lady-was a delectable pimento. Her carnal appetites were excessive and bizarre. What, then, was the matter with him?

  And at last he quite justly accused himself. It was his own fault if everything was spoiled. He lacked appetite. He was not really tormented except by a cerebral erethism. He was used up in body, filed away in soul, inept at love, weary of tendernesses even before he received them and disgusted when he had. His heart was dead and could not be revived. And his mania for thinking, thinking! previsualizing an incident so vividly that actual enactment was an anticlimax-but probably would not be if his mind would leave him alone and not be always jeering at his efforts. For a man in his state of spiritual impoverishment all, save art, was but a recreation more or less boring, a diversion more or less vain. "Ah, poor woman, I am afraid she is going to get pretty sick of me. If only she would consent to come no more! But no, she doesn't deserve to be treated in that fashion," and, seized by pity, he swore to himself that the next time she visited him he would caress her and try to persuade her that the disillusion which he had so ill concealed did not exist.