161 …dusty treelets. Huysmans uses a neologism, arbricules, from the word arbre, meaning tree.
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167 …Hey, wench! Huysmans uses the word limande in the original, which usually refers to a kind of fish, but which was also slang for prostitute.
169 …You thought you could break with me. I have freely translated this paragraph as the sense is difficult to make out. Huysmans uses a series of obscure metaphors and slang phrases, such as tu as cassé l’agrafe, which can mean to snap a metal joint (i.e. a reference to the rupture between Céline and Anatole), and the expression faire une soudure in the next sentence, which is another metalworking term meaning to solder or weld a joint back together. This extended metaphor is continued in a subsequent paragraph, where Anatole talks about heating up the glue that will bind him and Céline back together again (chauffer la colle qui doit nous réparer).
169 …putting vinegar on it. A remedy for removing glue was to apply vinegar.
172 …Rue du Champ d’Asile. Now the Rue Froideveaux, a street in the 14th arrondissement that connects the Avenue du Maine and the Place Denfert-Rochereau, and which runs all the way along the south wall of Montparnasse cemetery.
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179 …framed advertisements. Huysmans refers in the original to chromolithographies, and although new techniques in colour lithography were used to good effect by renowned artists such as Chéret and Toulouse-Lautrec, the word has a pejorative connotation here. This was because the use of colour lithography was widespread in advertising, in popular illustrated magazines, and in cheap prints and reproductions of art.
180 …a little boy in his nightshirt. This is most likely another reference to colour lithographic prints and their use in popular advertising, presumably for skin cream in this case, hence the joking allusions to cucumbers and cold-cream.
182 …spout innumerable blunders. Huysmans has Céline mistake a number of common expressions: instead of quart d’heure de Rabelais, which refers to the embarrassment one feels when you realise you can’t afford to pay a restaurant bill, she uses the word rabais (discount); instead of roses trémières (hollyhocks) she uses the word cremière (dairy-woman); instead of l’oeil de lynx, meaning to have very good eyesight, she uses the word larynx; and instead of cedre du Liban (Lebanon cedar), she uses the word zèbre (zebra). I have adapted the references slightly to suit English turns of phrase or expressions.
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187 …after he’d satisfied himself. This not-so oblique reference to masturbation was daring even for Naturalists of the period, and anticipates Paul Bonnetain’s novel on the subject Charlot s’amuse (1883).
187 …not even Joseph. This is probably an allusion not to Joseph the father of Jesus, but to the Old Testament Joseph who is sold into slavery by his brothers and bought by Potiphar the Egyptian. Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce Joseph, and when he refuses she accuses him of attempting to rape her.
188 …the Château-d’eau theatre. A Parisian music hall located at 50 Rue de Malte in the 11th arrondissement. Inaugurated in 1867, the theatre went through a number of directors and name changes before becoming the Alhambra in 1904. At the time of The Vatard Sisters, the theatre was run by Eugène Dejean and staged a number of dramas, revues and pantomimes. After Dejean went bankrupt, the theatre added operetta and light opera to its repertoire, but this never really took off. The direction of the Théâtre du Château-d’Eau passed to George de Lagrenée in 1883 and the theatre’s name changed to the Opéra-Populaire.
189 …Hervé’s quadrilles. Louis-Auguste-Florimond Ronger, known as Hervé (1825-1892) was a composer, playwright, singer and director. The author of numerous popular operettas he was also a friend of Jacques Offenbach’s, who he rivalled in popularity.
190 …in places like Clamart. Clamart is a commune south of Paris between Montrouge and Versailles. Served by rail and by bus, its expanses of countryside were a convenient place for Parisians to picnic or take country walks in the nineteenth century.
191 …the factory where it had been made. The list that follows comprises some of the most famous engineering works in France, Belgium and Germany at the time.
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193 …Rue de Picpus. The Rue de Picpus is to the east of Paris in the twelfth arrondissement. The Picpus quarter borders the Bois de Vincennes, so it represents a good hour’s walk from Saint-Sulpice.
196 …the Halle aux Vins on the Quai Saint-Bernard. The Halle aux Vins comprised a series of warehouses, storage facilities and yards for the wine trade, situated on the south side of the Seine between the Pont de Sully and the Pont d’Austerlitz. It was demolished and the area redeveloped in the 1950s, and is now the site of the Faculty of Science of the University of Paris, and the Institute de la Monde Arabe.
200 …Boulevard de Mazas. Now the Boulevard Diderot, the Boulevard de Mazas opened on the Place de Mazas at the angle of the Quai de la Rapée in the eleventh arrondissement, and went on in a straight line till it reached the Place du Trône, now the Place de la Nation.
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202-3 …the Moulin de la Galette. The last remaining windmill in Paris, the Moulin de la Galette in the Montmartre district became the site of a famous restaurant and café-concert during the nineteenth century. It was one of the favoured haunts of artists such as van Gogh and Pissarro, and its ambiance was most notably captured by Renoir, in one of his most famous Impressionist works, Bal du Moulin de la Galette of 1876. It is significant that Huysmans here is associating Cyprien with the Impressionist movement, which at the time of the novel’s composition hadn’t achieved the kind of public recognition and acceptance it would later do.
203 …the Cirque d’Été. Formerly the Cirque nationale, the Cirque d’Été was located at the Carré Marigny on the Avenue Champs-Élysées, more or less where the Théâtre Marigny stands now. The circus experienced a period of success up to the 1880s, but in the 1890s its popularity declined and the building was demolished in 1900.
203 …a spot near the Place Pinel, behind the abattoir. The ancient abattoir of Villejuif was situated near the Place Pinel in the thirteenth arrondissement, not far from the Place de l’Italie. It was demolished and in 1909 the École Municipale des Arts et Métiers was built on the site.
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214 …her head bare. A woman outside not wearing a hat of some kind was not considered proper, so her bare head is a signifier of her profession.
216 …the grandiose word ‘anemia’. Huysmans made frequent use, often in an ironic context, of the word anemia. In En ménage (1881), Cyprien Tibaille (who reprises his role as an artist in the novel) is described as anemic, as is des Esseintes in À rebours (1884). In his pseudonymous mock-biography of himself for Les Hommes d’Aujourd’hui (1885), Huysmans described himself as being identical to the anemic-neurotic characters he wrote about.
222 …beat the whole table at whist. In the original Huysmans calls the card game rheimps, but as little is known of what this game entailed, I have substituted ‘whist’ instead.
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227 …the Virgin of the Rue Mouf-mouf. The Rue Mouf-mouf was a nickname for the Rue Mouffetard in the Latin Quarter.
233 …When the wine’s been poured. This is perhaps an allusion to an old proverb made famous during the 1870s by the success of Alphonse Daudet’s Lettres de Mon Moulin (1870), in which it appeared. The full expression runs Quand le vin est tiré, il faut le boire (When the wine’s been poured, it must be drunk).
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245 …The Handsome Mexican, April, My Titles of Nobility. These were all popular songs of the period. Le Joli Mexicain was written by Antoine Queyriaux with music by Louis Gregh (1843-1915), who also used the pseudonym Louis Bonardi. Quite a few songs of this period contained Avril (April) in the title, possibly referring to the April of 1871, when the Commune took control of Paris. Although Huysmans gives the title of the last piece as Mes Titres de Noblesse (literally My Titles of Nobility) this is probably a song by Gaston Ville
mer and Louis Gabillaud from 1875, entitled La Noblesse des Travailleurs, which praises the workers of the Republic, one of its couplets runs: ‘Work, Progress and Liberty/Those are my Titles of Nobility.’
246 …hob-nailed boots of water-carriers. According to the description in a nineteenth century newspaper article, the water-carrier was usually between 20 and 40 years old, and between 5’ 5” and 5’ 9” tall. He wore a large brimmed leather hat, which served him as both parasol or umbrella depending on whether it was sunny or wet, a red sash around his waist as a belt, and monstrous boots, furnished with a huge quantity of large-headed nails.
247 …the Iles-Marquises. The restaurant Aux Iles-Marquises is still at 15 Rue de la Gaité in Paris, and still specialises in seafood.
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251 …products from Montereau and Creil. This group was formed in 1840 by the merger of two porcelain manufacturers, Creil and Montereau. The works at Creil had originally made use of techniques developed by Josiah Wedgwood, such as mixing calcined and powdered flint into the clay to produce porcelain with a smoother, shinier finish, which became known as English faïence.
253 …living it up at their posh parties. Huysmans uses the expression des noces de bâtons de chaises, which generally means to celebrate or ‘to go out on the town’. The phrase probably has its roots in the eighteenth century when those attending parties or soirées would arrive in sedan chairs (chaises) carried on poles (bâtons).
Copyright
Published in the UK by Dedalus Limited,
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Publishing History:
First published in France in 1879
First published by Dedalus in 2012
First e-book edition in 2012
Translation copyright © Brendan King 2012
The right of Brendan King to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Printed in Finland by Bookwell
Typeset by Marie Lane
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The Vatard Sisters Page 25
