The painting of Gustave Moreau, the engravings of Luyken, the lithographs of Bresdin and Redon make the same impression on me now as then. I have no modification to make in the arrangement of the little collection.
As for the terrible Chapter VI, the number of which corresponds, without any preconceived purpose on my part, to the Commandment it offends against, as also for some portions of Chapter IX that may be classed with it, I should obviously not write them in the same vein again. They should at least have been accounted for, in a more studious spirit, by that diabolic perversity of the will which affects, especially in matters of sensual aberration, the exhausted brains of sick folk. It would seem, in fact, that nervous invalids expose fissures in the soul’s envelope whereby the Spirit of Evil effects an entrance. But this is a riddle that remains unsolved; the word hysteria explains nothing; it may suffice to define a material condition, to mark invincible disturbances of the senses, it does not account for the spiritual consequences attached to the phenomena and, more particularly, the sins of dissimulation and falsehood that are almost always engrafted on them. What are the details and attendant circumstances of this malady of sinfulness, in what degree is the responsibility diminished of the individual whose soul is attacked by a sort of demoniac possession that takes root in the disorganization of his unhappy body? None can tell: on this point Medicine talks mere folly, Theology holds her peace.
In default of a solution which manifestly he could not supply, Des Esseintes should have viewed the question from the point of view of sinfulness and expressed at any rate some regret. He refrained from abusing himself, and he did wrong; but then, though educated by the Jesuits, whose panegyrist he is, and a more ardent one than Durtal—he had grown subsequently so recalcitrant to the Divine constraints, so obstinately resolved to wallow in the mire of his carnal appetites!
In any case, these chapters seem to be markstakes unconsciously planted to indicate the road Là-Bas was to follow. It is noteworthy moreover that Des Esseintes’ library contained a certain number of old books of magic and that the ideas expressed in Chapter VII of Against the Grain on sacrilege are the hooks on which to hang a subsequent volume treating the subject more thoroughly.
As for this book Là-Bas, which frightened so many people, neither should I write it, if I had to do the thing again, in the same manner, now I am become a Catholic once more. There is no doubt indeed that the wicked and sensual side therein developed is reprehensible; but at the same time I declare I have glazed over things, I have said nothing of the worst; the documents it embodies are in comparison with those I have omitted, but which I have among my papers, very insipid sweetmeats, very tasteless titbits.
I believe, nevertheless, that in spite of its cerebral aberrations and its abdominal follies, the work, by mere virtue of the subject it laid bare, has done good service. It has recalled attention to the wiles of the Evil One, who had succeeded in getting men to deny his existence; it has been the starting-point of all the studies, revived of late years, on the never-changing procedure of Satanism; it has helped, by exposing them, to put an end to the odious practices of sorcery; it had taken sides, in fact, and fought a very strenuous fight for the Church against the Devil,
To come back to Against the Grain, of which this book is only a succedaneum, I may repeat in connection with the flower chapter what I have already stated with regard to precious stones.
Against the Grain considers them only from the point of view of shapes or colours, in no wise from that of the significations they disclose; Des Esseintes chose only rare orchids, strange blossoms, but without a tongue. It is fair to add that he would have found it hard to give speech in the book to a flora attacked by aphasia, a dumb flora, for the symbolic language of plants died with the Middle Ages, and the vegetable creoles cherished by Des Esseintes were unknown to the allegorists of those days.
The counterpart of this flower study I have written since in La Cathédrale, when dealing with that liturgical horticulture which has suggested such quaint pages in the works of St. Hildegard, St. Meliton and St. Eucher.
It is different with the question of odours, the mystic emblems of which I have expounded in the same book.
Des Esseintes had concerned himself only with lay perfumes, simple scents or extracts, and profane perfumes, compound essences or bouquets.
He might have extended his experiments to the aromas of the Church, incense, myrrh and that strange Thymiama mentioned in the Bible and which is still noted in the ritual books as proper to be burned, together with incense, under the mouths of Church bells when they are baptised, after the Bishop has washed them with holy water and made the sign of the cross on them with the Holy Chrism and the oil of the sick. But this fragrant essence seems forgotten even by the Church, and I imagine a curé would be not a little startled if asked for Thymiama.
Yet the recipe is given in Exodus. The Thymiama was compounded of styrax, galbanum, incense and onycha, and this last ingredient would seem to be nothing else but the operculum of a certain shell of the tribe of the “purples” which is dredged up in the Indian seas.
Now it is difficult, not to say impossible, given the insufficient description of this shell and the locality it comes from, to prepare an authentic Thymiama. This is a pity, for had it been otherwise, this lost perfume would have
