The Angels of Perversity

by Remy de Gourmont

  “It’s you!”

  “She is beginning to understand.”

  “Daphne! See how the miserable Laurel Wreath lures Apollo haloed in gold. She invests herself with bark, ironically, and the crimson buttons at her unkissed breasts flourish between the golden horns of jealous Diana. No goat has browsed the mossy strands of its bare branches, and the drunken Faun has forsaken the unpolluted hiatus of its sexual cavity, jewelled with amber and topazes, for the crevices of perverse ash-trees … Apollo would have delighted in you, you see? See how beautiful it is, more amorous than a turgescent thyrsus, or an arched catkin weeping pollen tears …”

  “Yes, but this halo …?”

  “Oh! I love you! I will love you till the green Dragon loses his horns!”

  “Who said that, dear, you or I?”

  “Oh! when I speak, it is only to say the things which everyone says.”

  Like the A’lmindor that powdered Eisen, I spread myself out over the cushioning grass, and I compliment her on the extreme whiteness of her colouring. A rap of her fan on my knuckles is my only reward.

  “Are we not embarked for Cythera?”

  “There is no breeze to inflate the sails of mauve silk, and we have not a single oarsman.”

  “I assure you that I will do the rowing, charming Acine, while you man the helm.”

  “Oh, but I am so shy! One distraction …”

  “Don’t worry about my part!”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t take that chance!”

  At her home.

  While still disturbed by the enchantments of the Sonata which my wandering finger has designed, I sit down some distance away from her, on the sofa, with my eyes closed.

  “Ah! Is this, then, how you trample down my true desires? Behold the first stroke, the first cry, the first smile, the first weep, the first doubt … she flies away! Come back! Come back – the crimson of your dress bloodies my eyes; I see the red nullity into which my life will darken; all is red: your mouth and my devoured flesh! Your breast flourishes with red made dulcet and dolorous … what delights there were in the harsh dream where the heart was flayed! Her mouth gives me fragrance and her hair caresses me!”

  “Where are you, then?”

  I am half-way there: her mouth gives me fragrance and her hair caresses me.

  “Read me and I will bring forth from the harpsichord such mortifying harmonies …

  “An evening in the heather. …”

  “Where are you reading from?”

  “I’m not reading – I speak from the heart.”

  “In what key?”

  “The minor – oh, the minor!”

  “An evening in the heather so forlorn,

  With a smiling and exhausted lover;

  While beetles climbed the horsetails,

  And blue jays shook the frail branches,

  The enamoured cries of tree-frogs

  Could be heard among the meadow-sweets.

  A dog, at the threshold of a half-open door,

  Howls mournfully at the new moon on high,

  Which brings slight joy to the blindfold sky;

  The milch-cow stirs and lows in the byre,

  A dog howls mournfully at the new moon,

  On high, at the threshold of a half-open door.

  Our feet bruise the diamond-dewed grass,

  We scale the silvered ravine,

  Its slope as steep as effaced sensation,

  Knees weary and hearts refreshed

  By scaling the silvered ravine

  And trampling the diamond-dewed grass.

  While we climb, unsettled at heart,

  Yet smiling, towards the curving ridge,

  The dream, becalmed halfway,

  Sits down to think with head in hand,

  And we climb towards the curving ridge

  Still smiling, and unsettled at heart.”

  I have gone forth, bravely, half-convinced.

  Can one spend hours in the company of a woman, in an intimacy which goes as far as physical contact, without attempting the decisive penetration? I can no longer find, when I try again to see it, the vague irony of her smile; it is her eyes, instead, which now express disquiet …. Let us see whether the tacit accord which binds us will not exclude the final pleasure …

  … As was understood, you have come to fetch me, and the railway carries us away across woodlands reddened and gilded by the spent passions of summer. Autumn is as joyous and gentle as a premature demise: the beeches smile at impending death; shorn like bacchantes, the elms fall asleep; the oaks, like gladiators with tensed muscles, ironically await the final aura; only the pines and the larches are saddened by their immortality.

  The train stops in the untracked heart of the forest. There are no houses, nor any visible road; we venture forth on a haphazard trail through the undergrowth.

  Around us, the air is impregnated with mingled odours: enervated honeysuckle and acrid elder in imperfect accord; murmurous mosses and decaying leaves are other fading notes in the unsettled chant.

  A few steps brought us under the greyness of alders, where the moist vapours of fresh mint peppered our intoxication.

  Daphne (she almost believes by now that her name is Daphne) sits down and stretches herself out. Lying down next to her, it is her scent that I breathe. Unexpected perfumes: her orange hair which at times – perhaps by illusory means – flourishes with the scent of oranges, at this particular moment exhales the complex odour of figs dried by the sun; the back of her head reminds me of the leaves of the ash-tree; and on the neck, towards the throat, there is a scattering of little foxgloves … “O charming bush laid low by the wind of desire, I desire nothing but to submit myself to the extremities of your branches, to these hands which are moistened by the dewy grass, to these wrists imprinted with the odour of daisies, to your head, to that mouth, fountainhead of the forceful humidity of flowering mint. …”

  Flexing her knees, she raises herself up, and: “Let’s go, shall we?”

  The voice is abrupt, irritation tending towards anger: the amusing anger of a bird which hoped to drink a droplet from the crevice of a leaf, but overturned his glass while settling upon it.

  We walk on, side by side. We are silent, attentive only to the complicated emanations of the forest which evaporate so abundantly this evening – woman, weary of the reserve of the day, liberates imprisoned follies as dusk begins to fall.

  The train must have been waiting for us, for scarcely are we seated in our corner than the whistle sounds. It waited for us and it brings us back, exactly as we were on our departure.

  “It was hardly worth the trouble,” say Daphne’s eyes!

  At the door, before opening the carriage, I take her hand and kiss it – her hand, still damp with the freshness of the dewy grass.

  At her home.

  I discover her among flowerbeds of old silk ribbons, her manner very amused and yet serious, all sensation concentrated in the fingers which torment themselves with shimmering caresses. The thumb on the weft rubs against and perceives the floral design, all the elements of the pattern raised in relief.

  She closes her eyes:

  “Roses … roses enlivened by some carmine, wild roses rather, and at the heart of each – that’s right, isn’t it? – there is the yellowy white of the protruding pistil. Foliage in two shades of green grows around them, opening out wider; roses and leaves alternate along the material like the beads of an oriental rosary, slowly unrolled on a base of very pale green, as pale as a reflection of overhanging leaves in water.”

  She threw away the material without looking at it.

  “Yes, some days I see better with my fingers. The perceptions are finer, penetrating the flesh like very gentle stings … How absurd that must sound, very gentle stings!”

  I only smile a little, for I am here in my turn, kneeling among the silks, and a contagious sensitivity overtakes me: it is relaxing, even more so than the grass …

  Oh, Galatea (she almost believes by now tha
t her name is Galatea), here is a burnt crimson which lets loose a carnal warmth, as carnal as your feverish cheeks! The cerise velvet draws my lips as your lips do …

  “You embrace my ribbons now!”

  She laughs, a little upset. She is sitting on her heels; I lean forward; she comes to her feet. To steady myself, I reach out my hand at random: it finds the bare heel of Galatea, coming out of its sandal, and the fingers amuse themselves so very gently, caressing the blushing skin towards the ankle, quivering a little upon the joints …

  The heel has escaped me: she has seated herself on a cushion, and the unfamiliar red dress, with ribbons red as poppies, has been brought back to cover the sandals.

  We start to knead the amusing silks again. Mysterious blues come into view, overpowering the reds and denying the greens. Adieu, grass! Adieu, virescent shadows extending on water the reflections of overhanging leaves! Adieu, crimsons burnt by desire! Adieu, carnal crimsons! … Open windows are blue, and we depart from here towards the bright heavens … I regain my feet now: on contact with this blue-green velvet I have jumped into the cockpit, and I find myself again. Galatea, I kiss the blue-green of the veins which ramify upon your wrists … Green? What green? No, it is decidedly blue, this wrist, by virtue of the veins which encircle it with their blue tracery … O blood, carry me towards the heart of Galatea! O fabulous labyrinth of the veins, carry me! Take me there, fabulous labyrinth of the arteries, take me and conduct me by the secret ways through the intimacy of her flesh … I will follow the contours at this very moment … But the dream gives way to the hands: Galatea abandons herself to my precise hands: here are the arms formed in their perfect posture, with the complex junction of the elbow: the crook where the tensed muscles are opposed, and where the double point of the bone is exposed beneath; and towards the shoulder, the adorable and fugitive curve of the muscles of the embrace … The shoulders, the neck, the nape where the little vertebrae stand out, the lobed ears like sea-shells, mysterious conches in whose depths there sounds a susurrus of love … The back shudders like a billowing wave, and lo! the wave divides into two breakers: a marine ridge dedicated to Aphrodite! … Hips … The complexity of the female sexual parts! … Waist, I design you with my joined hands, and with such delicate finger-play I model you, breasts of Galatea, and you, abdomen of Galatea, a pillow softer than that pillow of clouds where Phoebe rests her lunar forehead …

  The artful night has stolen upon us: Adieu, Galatea.

  At my home.

  Set low down, as though for children, emerging from an accumulation of cushions, the little citron table bears a bronze dragon, where green tea is already simmering; opaline eggshells ready to be filled; Rhenish wine and a bohemian flute; special pastries with spices; a few preserves, tamarinds, cranberries and Chinese ginger.

  When she comes in, this capricious preparation unsettles her. It is as if she suspects the hidden presence of some philtre, that aphrodisiacs have undoubtedly been secreted here, cunningly measured out and dissolved in the pâtés, the fruits and the fluids … It is as if she intends to divine my true intentions, and is singularly determined no longer to desire that which she believes that I desire!

  But I am not embarrassed by such a disposition. With a smile, and a series of amusing gallantries, I divest her of her veil, her hat, her mantle and her gloves.

  Suddenly, she recovers her muff, which she threw aside on arriving, from an armchair, and she hurls it in the air, right up to the ceiling. She catches it, throws it up again, and misses it. I fetch it, we play with it as though with rackets, she is flustered, runs to the mirror, pats her curls, sits down: it’s all over.

  Her defensiveness has evaporated during the game. She tells me about her day. I am patient enough while the minutes go by; they are easy to bear when one has faith in the promise given, although there is always a tiny thrill of uncertainty. Eventually, the familiar step climbs the stairway of the spine – the kiss by which one takes possession …

  “A rather feeble prize,” Galatea remarks. “If only one could let oneself be taken … taken, in the end … without dispossessing oneself.”

  “A caged bird reserves to herself, by the good will of her gaoler, her material liberty. The joy of the fowler would surely be greater if he knew that he had captured a soul – but that can never be known, can it? How can one penetrate the mysteries of metempsychosis, to assure oneself that the quarry is animated by some divine breath?”

  “How does the presence of a soul become manifest?”

  “I don’t know. A creature which has one acquires an innate spirituality; a human with a soul is like a branch of box-wood thrown into a petrifying spring, covered by an impermeable layer which prevents the oozing out of thoughts.”

  “Have I one?” Galatea demands.

  “Dear soul of my perversity, would I love you if I had not sensed a soul in you?”

  “Perversity? Oh!”

  Evidently, she believes that perversity consists of laying down a woman on combinations of cushions or on the carpet, and there violating the mysteries of her lingerie and her hosiery, to obtain relief therefrom in spite of her – and not without impertinence.

  “Am I then,” she muses, “no more than a soul, endowed with a certain corporeality formulated according to an adequate aesthetic standard: your completed Galatea?”

  I pretend not to understand, and pour out the tea. Galatea prefers intoxicating Rhenish wine to over-aromatic tea, and she is soon very excited, offering me cranberry jam to eat from her spoon, and cake to munch broken off by her teeth, and wine to drink from her moistened lips …

  As for me, I kiss her fingers, which taste of ginger, and I feel myself hungering for living flesh more odorous in the skin than yellow tea – for your highly-spiced hair, Galatea, for the fine emanations of your flora, flower, and the hot peppers of your fauna, woman …

  No, no more, only to drink you and to eat you …

  … Ah, what flavours I have found, original and stimulating! …

  No! Remain thus, Daphne, rendered eternal by desire: enter into your bark and dream until that time when, haloed with gold, I come to apply my saddened lips to the arborescent flesh of my sterilised amours …

  Here ends the game of elementary sensations.

  THE PHANTOM

  THE PORTAL

  In the mornings of our love the sky was white and forgiving: sidereal breasts extended towards our lips the authentic milk of primal refreshment, and favoured the polar pupils of our eyes with a light to equal the transparency of our desires.

  We were awakened by bells which sounded ecstatically in our heads, calling us to come out of ourselves. They chimed in our heads and above the town, like those which called the faithful to prayer, but we could not mistake them for the common bells of twilight. Morning claimed our obedient and joyous souls, and would not surrender them. Our bodies, chilled by anxious expectation of the cloak of eternal sleep, were warmed and consoled in their very depths by the hope of union; and the solitude of the flesh was eased by the grace of the white and forgiving sky.

  Your innocence sets you apart from your sisters, and brings you to me. I do not know you, sisterkin, and your spirit frightens me. Why do you come to me naked? The body is the modesty of the soul: go dress yourself, for you confound my chastity and excite in my spirit the pure concupiscence of love.

  I wish to bathe the nudity of my desire in the fresh waters of your thought, sisterkin. Only admit me to the depths of your inner being and you will know the secrets of my nature. Only let me in and I will fall like a sharp stone upon your unblemished breast, and gently pass to the very core of your being, and release such a fount of blood that the sky will be splashed by love.

  But why do you want to stain the immateriality of my peace with the spilt blood of love, O mad and cruel sisterkin? I have neither breast nor blood, and you have neither cutting edge nor gravity. We are more intangible than the track of a bird in flight, more invisible than the perfume of roses. I dearly wish to lo
ve you, mad sister, but go clothe yourself, that I may see you!

  But you too are naked, poor soul: as naked in essence as I am myself; and all is metaphor, in the end. If I clothe my body again, what will you do with it, and with what eyes will you gaze into mine?

  Essence is essential and form is formal, but form is the formality of essence.

  We will place seven roses at the seven keys of the viol, and the rainbow shall provide the strings.

  Inhale my odour, O Heart; I am fragrant and dying, by virtue of the death of the roses.

  Inhale my breath, O Queen; I am amorous and afraid, I am afraid of your happiness, O flower!

  Hear my sighs, O Lord; my sighs have broken the viol with the seven strings, but I shall make seven more with my seven desires.

  Hear my speech, O Folly; your words have broken the strings of my heart, but I shall make seven more with your seven sighs.

  Look into my joy, O King; the flowers are dead, the viol is dead; all are dead save for you.

  Look into my Heaven, O Beauty; the seven colours have died of joy; all are dead save for you.

  THE PALACE OF SYMBOLS

  Form is the formality of essence. We accepted that aphorism, which the voice of Heaven ringing in our heads had not denied. We seemed real enough to ourselves. We were real, at any rate, in terms of the most common – though not the only – objectivity.

  Our pact was made in a gambling-room, amid the assaults of a host of indiscreet costumes, from which we were separated by the pallor of our ennui. It seemed that we were surrounded by the excited wailing of infants; their voices were alike whether they had blond hair or white, whether they were winning or not. Some of those embarked upon this mass assassination of consciousness wore a bloody stain at the right side of the heart, but others who carried no such sign had been no less courageous. The sight distressed us both.