Down There (Là-Bas)

by Joris-karl Huysmans

  He tried to spread up the bed, get the tousled blankets together, and plump the pillows, then he lay down.

  He put out his lamp. In the darkness his distress increased. With death in his heart he said to himself, "Yes, I was right in declaring that the only women you can continue to love are those you lose.

  "To learn, three years later, when the woman is inaccessible, chaste and married, dead, perhaps, or out of France-to learn that she loved you, though you had not dared believe it while she was near you, ah, that's the dream! These real and intangible loves, these loves made up of melancholy and distant regrets, are the only ones that count. Because there is no flesh in them, no earthly leaven.

  "To love at a distance and without hope; never to possess; to dream chastely of pale charms and impossible kisses extinguished on the waxen brow of death: ah, that is something like it. A delicious straying away from the world, and never the return. As only the unreal is not ignoble and empty, existence must be admitted to be abominable. Yes, imagination is the only good thing which heaven vouchsafes to the skeptic and pessimist, alarmed by the eternal abjectness of life."

  CHAPTER XIV

  From this scene he had learned an alarming lesson: that the flesh domineers the soul and refuses to admit any schism. 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 a 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.

  He was still ruminating these thoughts when Des Hermies entered.

  They spoke of amorous misadventures. Astonished at once by Durtal's languor and the ascetic tone of his remarks, Des Hermies exclaimed, "Ah, we had a gay old time last night?"

  With the most decisive bad grace Durtal shook his head.

  "Then," replied Des Hermies, "you are superior and inhuman. To love without hope, immaculately, would be perfect if it did not induct such brainstorms. There is no excuse for chastity, unless one has a pious end in view, or unless the senses are failing, and if they are one had best see a doctor, who will solve the question more or less unsatisfactorily. To tell the truth, everything on earth culminates in the act you reprove. The heart, which is supposed to be the noble part of man, has the same form as the penis, which is the so-called ignoble part of man. There's symbolism in that similarity, because every love which is of the heart soon extends to the organ resembling it. The human imagination, the moment it tries to create artificially animated beings, involuntarily reproduces in them the movements of animals propagating. Look at the machines, the action of the piston and the cylinder; Romeos of steel and Juliets of cast iron. Nor do the loftier expressions of the human intellect get away from the advance and withdrawal copied by the machines. One must bow to nature's law if one is neither impotent nor a saint. Now you are neither the one nor the other, I think, but if, from inconceivable motives, you desire to live in temporary continence, follow the prescription of an occultist of the sixteenth century, the Neapolitan Piperno. He affirms that whoever eats vervain cannot approach a woman for seven days. Buy a jar, and let's try it."

  Durtal laughed. "There is perhaps a middle course: never consummate the carnal act with her you love, and, to keep yourself quiet, frequent those you do not love. Thus, in a certain measure, you would conjure away possible disgust."

  "No, one would never get it out of one's head that with the woman of whom one was enamoured one would experience carnal delights absolutely different from those which one feels with the others, so your method also would end badly. And too, the women who would not be indifferent to one, have not charity and discretion enough to admire the wisdom of this selfishness, for of course that's what it is. But what say, now, to putting on your shoes? It's almost six o'clock and Mama Carhaix's beef can't wait."

  It had already been taken out of the pot and couched on a platter amid vegetables when they arrived. Carhaix, sprawling in an armchair, was reading his breviary.

  "What's going on in the world?" he asked, closing his book.

  "Nothing. Politics doesn't interest us, and General Boulanger's American tricks of publicity weary you as much as they do us, I suppose. The other newspaper stories are just a little more shocking or dull than usual.-Look out, you'll burn your mouth," as Durtal was preparing to take a spoonful of soup.

  "In fact," said Durtal, grimacing, "this marrowy soup, so artistically golden, is like liquid fire. But speaking of the news, what do you mean by saying there is nothing of pressing importance? And the trial of that astonishing abbé Boudes going on before the Assizes of Aveyron! After trying to poison his curate through the sacramental wine, and committing such other crimes as abortion, rape, flagrant misconduct, forgery, qualified theft and usury, he ended by appropriating the money put in the coin boxes for the souls in purgatory, and pawning the ciborium, chalice, all the holy vessels. That case is worth following."

  Carhaix raised his eyes to heaven.

  "If he is not sent to jail, there will be one more priest for Paris," said Des Hermies.

  "How's that?"

  "Why, all the ecclesiastics who get in bad in the provinces, or who have a serious falling out with the bishop, are sent here where they will be less in view, lost in the crowd, as it were. They form a part of that corporation known as 'scratch priests.'"

  "What are they?"

  "Priests loosely attached to a parish. You know that in addition to a curate, ministrants, vicars, and regular clergy, there are in every church adjunct priests, supply priests. Those are the ones I am talking about. They do the heavy work, celebrate the morning masses when everybody is asleep and the late masses when everybody is doing. It is they who get up at night to take the sacrament to the poor, and who sit up with the corpses of the devout rich and catch cold standing under the dripping church porches at funerals, and get sunstroke or pneumonia in the cemetery. They do all the dirty work. For a five or ten franc fee they act as substitutes for colleagues who have good livings and are tired of service. They are men under a cloud for the most part. Churches take them on, ready to fire them at a moment's notice, and keep strict watch over them while waiting for them to be interdicted or to have their celebret taken away. I simply mean that the provincial parishes excavate on the city the priests who for one reason or another have ceased to please."

  "But what do the curates and other titulary abbés do, if they unload their duties onto the backs of others?"

  "They do the elegant, easy work, which requires no effort, no charity. They shrive society women who come to confession in their most stunning gowns; they teach proper little prigs the catechism, and preach, and play the limelight rôles in the gala ceremonials which are got up to pander to the tastes of the faithful. At Paris, not counting the scratch priests, the clergy is divided thus: Man-of-the-world priests in easy circumstances: these are placed at la Madeleine and Saint Roch where the congregations are wealthy. They are wined and dined, they pass their lives in drawing-rooms, and comfort only elegant souls. Other priests who are good desk clerks, for the most part, but who have neither the education nor the fortune necessary to participate in the inconsequentialities of the idle rich. They live more in seclusion and visit only among the middle class. They console themselves for their unfashionableness by playing cards with each other and uttering crude commonplaces at the table."

  "Now, Des Hermies," said Carhaix, "you are going too far. I claim to know the clerical world myself, and there are, even in Paris, honest men who do their duty. They are covered with opprobrium and spat on. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry accuses them of the foulest vices. But after all, it must be said that the abbé Boudes and the Canon Docres are exceptions, thank God! and outside of Paris there are veritable saints, especially among
the country clergy."

  "It's a fact that Satanic priests are relatively rare, and the lecheries of the clergy and the knaveries of the episcopate are evidently exaggerated by an ignoble press. But that isn't what I have against them. If only they were gamblers and libertines! But they're lukewarm, mediocre, lazy, imbeciles. That is their sin against the Holy Ghost, the only sin which the All Merciful does not pardon."

  "They are of their time," said Durtal. "You wouldn't expect to find the soul of the Middle Ages inculcated by the milk-and-water seminaries."

  "Then," Carhaix observed, "our friend forgets that there are impeccable monastic orders, the Carthusians, for instance."

  "Yes, and the Trappists and the Franciscans. But they are cloistered orders which live in shelter from an infamous century. Take, on the other hand, the order of Saint Dominic, which exists for the fashionable world. That is the order which produces jewelled dudes like Monsabre and Didon. Enough said."

  "They are the hussars of religion, the jaunty lancers, the spick and span and primped-up Zouaves, while the good Capuchins are the humble poilus of the soul," said Durtal.

  "If only they loved bells," sighed Carhaix, shaking his head. "Well, pass the Coulommiers," he said to his wife, who was taking up the salad bowl and the plates.

  In silence they ate this Brie-type cheese. Des Hermies filled the glasses.

  "Tell me," Durtal asked Des Hermies, "do you know whether a woman who receives visits from the incubi necessarily has a cold body? In other words, is a cold body a presumable symptom of incubacy, as of old the inability to shed tears served the Inquisition as proof positive to convict witches?"

  "Yes, I can answer you. Formerly women smitten with incubacy had frigid flesh even in the month of August. The books of the specialists bear witness. But now the majority of the creatures who voluntarily or involuntarily summon or receive the amorous larvæ have, on the contrary, a skin that is burning and dry to the touch. This transformation is not yet general, but tends to become so. I remember very well that Dr. Johannès, he of whom Gévingey told you, was often obliged, at the moment when he attempted to deliver the patient, to bring the body back to normal temperature with lotions of dilute hydriodate of potassium."

  "Ah!" said Durtal, who was thinking of Mme. Chantelouve.

  "You don't know what has become of Dr. Johannès?" asked Carhaix.

  "He is living very much in retirement at Lyons. He continues, I believe, to cure venefices, and he preaches the blessed coming of the Paraclete."

  "For heaven's sake, who is this doctor?" asked Durtal.

  "He is a very intelligent and learned priest. He was superior of a community, and he directed, here in Paris, the only review which ever was really mystical. He was a theologian much consulted, a recognized master of divine jurisprudence; then he had distressing quarrels with the papal Curia at Rome and with the Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris. His exorcisms and his battles against the incubi, especially in the female convents, ruined him.

  "Ah, I remember the last time I saw him, as if it were yesterday. I met him in the rue Grenelle coming out of the Archbishop's house, the day he quitted the Church, after a scene which he told me all about. Again I can see that priest walking with me along the deserted boulevard des Invalides. He was pale, and his defeated but impressive voice trembled. He had been summoned and commanded to explain his actions in the case of an epileptic woman whom he claimed to have cured with the aid of a relic, the seamless robe of Christ preserved at Argenteuil. The Cardinal, assisted by two grand vicars, listened to him, standing.

  "When he had likewise furnished the information which they demanded about his cures of witch spells, Cardinal Guibert said, 'You had best go to La Trappe. '

  "And I remember word for word his reply, 'If I have violated the laws of the Church, I am ready to undergo the penalty of my fault. If you think me culpable, pass a canonical judgment and I will execute it, I swear on my sacerdotal honour; but I wish a formal sentence, for, in law, nobody is bound to condemn himself: "Nemo se tradere tenetur," says the Corpus Juris Canonici.'

  "There was a copy of his review on the table. The Cardinal pointed to a page and asked, 'Did you write that?'

  "'Yes, Eminence.'

  "'Infamous doctrines!' and he went from his office into the next room, crying, 'Out of my sight!'

  "Then Johannès advanced as far as the threshold of the other room, and falling on his knees, he said, 'Eminence, I had no intention of offending. If I have done so, I beg forgiveness.'

  "The Cardinal cried more loudly, 'Out of my sight before I call for assistance!'

  "Johannès rose and left.

  "'All my old ties are broken,' he said, as he parted from me. He was so sad that I had not the heart to question him further."

  There was a silence. Carhaix went up to his tower to ring a peal. His wife removed the dessert dishes and the cloth. Des Hermies prepared the coffee. Durtal, pensive, rolled his cigarette.

  Carhaix, when he returned, as if enveloped in a fog of sounds, exclaimed, "A while ago, Des Hermies, you were speaking of the Franciscans. Do you know that that order, to live up to its professions of poverty, was supposed not to possess even a bell? True, this rule has been relaxed somewhat. It was too severe! Now they have a bell, but only one."

  "Just like most other abbeys, then."

  "No, because all communities have at least three, in honour of the holy and triple Hypostasis."

  "Do you mean to say that the number of bells a monastery or church can have is limited by rule?"

  "Formerly it was. There was a pious hierarchy of ringing: the bells of a convent could not sound when the bells of a church pealed. They were the vassals, and, respectful and submissive as became their rank, they were silent when the Suzerain spoke to the multitudes. These principles of procedure, consecrated, in 1590, by a canon of the Council of Toulouse and confirmed by two decrees of the Congress of Rites, are no longer followed. The rulings of San Carlo Borromeo, who decreed that a church should have from five to seven bells, a boy's academy three, and a parochial school two, are abolished. Today churches have more or fewer bells as they are more or less rich… Oh, well, why worry? Where are the little glasses?"

  His wife brought them, shook hands with the guests, and retired.

  Then while Carhaix was pouring the cognac, Des Hermies said in a low voice, "I did not want to speak before her, because these matters distress and frighten her, but I received a singular visit this morning from Gévingey, who is running over to Lyons to see Dr. Johannès. He claims to have been bewitched by Canon Docre, who, it seems, is making a flying visit to Paris. What have been their relations? I don't know. Anyway, Gévingey is in a deplorable state."

  "Just what seems to be the matter with him?" asked Durtal.

  "I positively do not know. I made a careful auscultation and examined him thoroughly. He complains of needles pricking him around the heart. I observed nervous trouble and nothing else. What I am most worried about is a state of enfeeblement inexplicable in a man who is neither cancerous nor diabetical."

  "Ah," said Carhaix, "I suppose people are not betwitched now with wax images and needles, with the 'Manei' or the 'Dagyde' as it was called in the good old days."

  "No, those practises are now out of date and almost everywhere fallen into disuse. Gévingey who took me completely into his confidence this morning, told me what extraordinary recipes the frightful canon uses. These are, it seems, the unrevealed secrets of modern magic."

  "Ah, that's what interests me," exclaimed Durtal.

  "Of course I limit myself to repeating what was told me," resumed Des Hermies, lighting his cigarette. "Well, Docre keeps white mice in cages, and he takes them along when he travels. He feeds them on consecrated hosts and on pastes impregnated with poisons skilfully dosed. When these unhappy beasts are saturated, he takes them, holds them over a chalice, and with a very sharp instrument he pricks them here and there. The blood flows into the vase and he uses it, in a way which I shall explain in a
moment, to strike his enemies with death. Formerly he operated on chickens and guinea pigs, but he used the grease, not the blood, of these animals, become thus execrated and venomous tabernacles.

  "Formerly he also used a recipe discovered by the Satanic society of the Re-Theurgistes-Optimates, of which I have spoken before, and he prepared a hash composed of flour, meat, Eucharist bread, mercury, animal semen, human blood, acetate of morphine and aspic oil.

  "Latterly, and according to Gévingey this abomination is more perilous yet, he stuffs fishes with communion bread and with toxins skilfully graduated. These toxins are chosen from those which produce madness or lockjaw when absorbed through the pores. Then, when these fishes are thoroughly permeated with the substances sealed by sacrilege, Docre takes them out of the water, lets them rot, distills them, and expresses from them an essential oil one drop of which will produce madness. This drop, it appears, is applied externally, by touching the hair, as in Balzac's Thirteen."

  "Hmmm," said Durtal, "I am afraid that a drop of this oil long ago fell on the scalp of poor old Gévingey."

  "What is interesting about this story is not the outlandishness of these diabolical pharmacopoeia so much as the psychology of the persons who invent and manipulate them. Think. This is happening at the present day, and it is the priests who have invented philtres unknown to the sorcerers of the Middle Ages."