Down There / Lá-bas
Tags: Horror
And now for something completely different: Down There by Joris-Karl Huysmans. First published in several chapters in a newspaper, in 1891, it was considered shocking at the time. Some people even tried, unsuccessfully, to have it cancelled. Warning: SPOILERS.
[Note: all quotes were taken from Keene Wallis’ 1924 translation]
Lá-bas (its original French title) is the first of a quartet of novels - En Route, The Cathedral, and The Oblate being the other three - that follow the spiritual journey of the writer Durtal. He feels at odds with the times and surrounds himself with people who share his discomfort. His prospects for the future aren’t great and even as he feels drawn to religion, he struggles with the idea of fully committing to it.
Momentarily at times when, after reading certain books, his disgust for everyday life was accentuated, he longed for lenitive hours in a cloister, where the monotonous chant of prayers in an incense-laden atmosphere would bring on a somnolence, a dreamy rapture of mystical ideas. But only a simple soul, on which life’s wear and tear had left no mark, was capable of savouring the delights of such a self-abandon, and his own soul was battered and torn with earthly conflict.
Chapter I
Despite this longing, Durtal will be going in the opposite direction, as his work on a biography of the infamous Gilles de Rais leads him to to want to find out more about Satanism to really understand his subject’s state of mind. I’m ashamed to admit that I was disappointed when the novel started with a long diatribe against the naturalism literary movement by Durtal’s doctor friend Des Hermies, who believes the obsession with the material world is too limiting and of little artistic value save very few exceptions.
This fetid naturalism eulogizes the atrocities of modern life and flatters our positively American ways. It ecstasizes over brute force and apotheosizes the cash register. With amazing humility it defers to the nauseating taste of the mob. It repudiates style, it rejects every ideal, every aspiration towards the supernatural and the beyond.
Chapter I
The blurb promised Gilles de Rais and Satanism and it opens with that? Things got better when Durtal’s inner monologue turned to painting and how the Primitives managed to combine the natural and the spiritual. His thoughts on Grünewald’s depiction of the Crucifixion was what got me into the story and made me keep going.
Never before had naturalism transfigured itself by such a conception and execution. Never before had a painter so carnally envisaged divinity nor so brutally dipped his brush into the wounds and running sores and bleeding nail holes of the Saviour. Grünewald had passed all measure. He was the most uncompromising of realists, but his morgue Redeemer, his sewer Deity, let the observer know that realism could be truly transcendent.
Chapter I
In Down There, Huysmans does what Durtal proposes - mix the down-to-earth tone favoured by naturalism with more spiritual themes. So, in between conversations about the religious symbolism of church bells, dark magic, and sex demons, there are several slice of life moments showing Durtal’s more mundane concerns that also provide some humour, like his dealings with his concierge and cat. Durtal and Des Hermies’ opinions on wealth and workers were surprisingly topical, even if they have a too rosy view of the past:
Well! money was the devil, otherwise its mastery of souls was inexplicable.
But it reached its real height of monstrosity when, concealing its identity under an assumed name, it entitled itself capital. Then its action was not limited to individual incitation to theft and murder but extended to the entire human race. With one word capital decided monopolies, erected banks, cornered necessities, and, if it wished, caused thousands of human beings to starve to death.
Chapter I
Today the business man has but these aims, to exploit the working man, manufacture shoddy, lie about the quality of merchandise, and give short weight.
Chapter VIII
After that initial hurdle, the novel proved to be an easy read, not because it’s simplistic, but because the narrative just flows. While very little happens, it never got boring, though to say I wasn’t crazy about the Durtal/Hyacinthe Chantelouve infatuation would be an understatement.
Most of the novel consists of lengthy conversations between Durtal, Des Hermies, Carhaix, the bell-ringer of the church of Saint Sulpice, and Gévingey, an astrologer. Carhaix is always ready to share information about bells in a way that suggests Huysmans did research for another project and didn’t want to waste it (or maybe he just really liked church bells but no one wanted to listen to his fun facts):
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.
Chapter XIV
Listen to this motto printed in raised letters on the bronze robe of the great bell of Schaffhausen, ‘I call the living, I mourn the dead, I break the thunder.’ And this other which figured on an old bell in the belfry of Ghent, ‘My name is Roland. When I toll, there is a fire; when I peal, there is a tempest in Flanders.’
Chapter XVII
One day, Des Hermies shocks Durtal by assuring him that Satanism is alive and well. He offers information on the manner of worship, historical cases of diabolism, and tells his friend about Canon Docre, an infamous priest who celebrates the Black Mass and performs dark magic. This isn’t the stylish Satanism of mainstream Hollywood, though, but the dirty type where people stick wafers up their butts. Gévingey adds more details about sex demons and how the spells are cast, and ends up becoming the (alleged) victim of one of Docre’s evil spells.
I can tell you what they did. An excellent man named Psellus has revealed to us, in a book entitled De Operatione Dæmonum, the fact that they tasted of the two excrements at the beginning of their ceremonial, and that they mixed human semen with the host.
Chapter V
I believe that it takes place before an altar as in a church. Indeed it was sometimes celebrated thus at the end of the fifteenth century in Biscay. It is true that the Devil then officiated in person. Clothed in rent and soiled episcopal habits, he gave communion with round pieces of shoe leather for hosts, saying, ‘This is my body.’
Chapter XVIII
The biggest of these societies founded as long ago as 1855 is the society of the Re-Theurgistes-Optimates. Beneath an apparent unity it is divided into two camps, one aspiring to destroy the universe and reign over the ruins, the other thinking simply of imposing upon the world a demoniac cult of which it shall be high priest.
Chapter V
Know, then, that the organ of the incubus is bifurcated and at the same time penetrates both vases. Formerly it extended, and while one branch of the fork acted in the licit channels, the other at the same time reached up to the lower part of the face.
Chapter IX
The law of countersigns consists, when you know in advance the day and hour of the attack, in going away from home, thus throwing the spell off the track and neutralizing it, or saying an hour beforehand, ‘Here I am. Strike!’ The last method is calculated to scatter the fluids to the wind and paralyze the powers of the assailant.
Chapter XX
Every individual struck by magic has three days in which to take measures. That time past, the ill is incurable.
Chapter XX
My XXI century mind had some trouble taking all this talk about spirits, incubi, and spells seriously, and I kept expecting either Des Hermies or Durtal to start laughing about it once they were alone, especially after Gévingey’s story about the encounter with the supposed succubus. However, Des Hermies keeps vouching for the astrologer’s credibility and while Durtal expresses some doubts, he’s nowhere near as sceptic as you’d expect and is ready to believe that Hyacinthe has been sleeping with demons. Of course I’m used to stories featuring characters with different beliefs, but the setting is so grounded that it makes the less grounded stuff stand out more. It’s not as if they’re talking about mainstream religious beliefs - some of this is pretty out there. I did my best to get into the characters’ mindset, but Doctor Johannès, the specialist who saves Gévingey from his magical illness, made it really hard. The novel takes place in the XIX century, not the Middle Ages, so reading Gévingey’s perfectly sincere account of him fighting a secret magic war with the Vatican was a little crazy.
Johannès is commissioned by Heaven to break up the venomous practises of Satanism and to preach the coming of the glorified Christ and the divine Paraclete. Now the diabolical Curia which holds the Vatican in its clutches has every reason of self-interest for putting out of the way a man whose prayers fetter their conjurements and neutralize their spells.
Chapter XX
It didn’t help that a lot of what the astrologer says about Johannès’ methods sounded a little suspicious. After he mentioned the upside down cross on the doctor’s robes, I expected a later twist connecting him to Docre or another Satanist faction, but this is how Gévingey explains it:
This cross, reversed like the figure of the Hanged Man in the old-fashioned Tarot card deck, signifies that the priest Melchizedek must die in the Old Man - that is, man affected by original sin - and live again in the Christ, to be powerful with the power of the Incarnate Word which died for us.
If you say so… I had never heard of Melchizedek, but Huysmans’ helpfully provides some verses in which he’s mentioned, the best being Hebrews 7:3:
Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life, he is thereby likened to the Son of God, who remains a priest continuously.
Ooh, how mysterious. This same chapter offers some bonus Apocalyptic content when the subject turns to the coming third kingdom, where all the evils of the human world will be fixed.
If the third kingdom is an illusion, what consolation is left for Christians in face of the general disintegration of a world which charity requires us not to hate?
Of the Old Testament, that of the Father, the kingdom of fear. Of the New Testament, that of the Son, the kingdom of expiation. Of the Johannite Gospel, that of the Holy Ghost, the kingdom of redemption and love. They are the past, present, and future; winter, spring, and summer. The first, says Joachim of Floris, gives us the blade, the second, the leaf, and the third, the ear. Two of the Persons of the Trinity have shown themselves. Logically, the Third must appear.
The divine life will sanctify the organs which henceforth can procreate only elect creatures, exempt from original sin, creatures whom it will not be necessary to test in the fires of humiliation, as the Holy Bible says.
According to Gévingey, all this purifying will precede the return of Christ. It’s funny that Carhaix refers to the Gnostics’ beliefs as heresy when that third quote immediately reminded me of the Generation of Seth (though, to be fair, it’s been a while since I’ve read a Gnostic gospel, so I could be misremembering).
Gilles de Rais’ beliefs may be as absurd as the ones described above, but that absurdity is eclipsed by Huysmans’ descriptions of his crimes.
Gilles preserves the blood of this child to write formulas of evocation and conjurements. It manures a horrible crop. Not long afterward the Marshal reaps the most abundant harvest of crimes that has ever been sown.
Chapter XI
I had already read about it in François Ribadeau Dumas’ Les Dossiers Secrets De La Sorcellerie Et De La Magie Noire and Ray Russell’s Sagittarius, though Huysmans managed to provide some more gruesome details (of which the quote above isn’t an example) (seriously, there’s worse) I wasn’t aware of.
He dies at the age of thirty-six, but he has completely exhausted the possibilities of joy and grief. He has adored death, loved as a vampire, kissed inimitable expressions of suffering and terror, and has, himself, been racked by implacable remorse, insatiable fear. He has nothing more to try, nothing more to learn, here below.
Chapter VI
From one of Joan of Arc’s companions to one of the worse murderers of France. Des Hermies and Durtal try to explain this change, but none of their explanations are very convincing. The description of the trial was surreal, with Gilles de Rais confessing and repenting, which saves him from excommunication but not execution, and the subjects he had terrorised being so moved by this display that they prayed for his soul. Gilles de Rais’ ghastly story and the warnings of Gévingey don’t stop Durtal from wanting to meet Canon Docre, whom the astrologer describes as “the most redoubtable master Satanism now can claim”.
What does he do? He evokes the Devil, and he feeds white mice on the hosts which he consecrates. His frenzy for sacrilege is such that he had the image of Christ tattooed on his heels so that he could always step on the Saviour.
Chapter IX
The opportunity to do so comes courtesy of Hyacinthe Chantelouve, the wife of an acquaintance, who becomes infatuated with him. I’m glad that the character ended up serving a purpose (taking Durtal to a Black Mass in Chapter XIX), but until then, the whole thing was just awful. It starts with a terrible letter that for some reason fascinates Durtal, which is followed by slightly less terrible letters and him going back and forth between obsession and annoyance. Given that Huysmans was a writer, I expected him to do a better job with the letters, but the first one is so incredibly long and uninteresting that it’s impossible to understand Durtal’s reaction. The storyline gets better when Hyacinthe shows up in person, though her character proved to be quite frustrating. She starts out sophisticated and slowly becomes embarrassing. Fortunately, Durtal snapped out of it once they had sex. Huysmans may not have been very good at writing enticing romantic letters, but he was great at conveying the awfulness of bad sex. What was Hyacinthe getting out of this? I started wondering if it was all a plot by the Satanists to mess with Durtal, but in the end, there was no twist. As for the Black Mass itself, it starts with the Canon praising Satan before criticising Jesus’ failure to protect the people counting on him (see some excerpts below):
Master of Slanders, Dispenser of the benefits of crime, Administrator of sumptuous sins and great vices, Satan, thee we adore, reasonable God, just God!
Thou savest the honour of families by aborting wombs impregnated in the forgetfulness of the good orgasm; thou dost suggest to the mother the hastening of untimely birth, and thine obstetrics spares the still-born children the anguish of maturity, the contamination of original sin.
Thou determinest the mother to sell her daughter, to give her son; thou aidest sterile and reprobate loves; Guardian of strident Neuroses, Leaden Tower of Hysteria, bloody Vase of Rape!
They [worshippers] ask, finally, glory, riches, power, of thee, King of the Disinherited, Son who art to overthrow the inexorable Father!
Thou [Jesus] hast forgotten the poverty thou didst preach, enamoured vassal of Banks! Thou hast seen the weak crushed beneath the press of profit; thou has heard the death rattle of the timid, paralyzed by famine, of women disembowelled for a bit of bread, and thou hast caused the Chancery of thy Simoniacs, thy commercial representatives, thy Popes, to answer by dilatory excuses and evasive promises, sacristy Shyster, huckster God!
Yeah, that does suck. You know what would make it suck a little less? If Satan stopped encouraging child trafficking and murderous resentment. After the Canon stops talking and the prayer bells ring, everyone goes nuts.
It was a signal. The women fell to the carpet and writhed. One of them seemed to be worked by a spring. She threw herself prone and waved her legs in the air. Another, suddenly struck by a hideous strabism, clucked, then becoming tongue-tied stood with her mouth open, the tongue turned back, the tip cleaving to the palate.
While the choir boys sprinkled holy water on the pontiff’s nakedness, women rushed upon the Eucharist and, grovelling in front of the altar, clawed from the bread humid particles and drank and ate divine ordure.
And Durtal, terrified, saw through the fog the red horns of Docre, who, seated now, frothing with rage, was chewing up sacramental wafers, taking them out of his mouth, wiping himself with them, and distributing them to the women, who ground them underfoot, howling, or fell over each other struggling to get hold of them and violate them.
Apparently, this is a turn on for Hyacinthe, who takes Durtal to a nearby place where she “took him treacherously and obliged him to desire her”, which I think means she forced a handjob on him? and is followed by some more awfulness:
She seized him, and with ghoulish fury, dragged him into obscenities of whose existence he had never dreamed. Suddenly, when he was able to escape, he shuddered, for he perceived that the bed was strewn with fragments of hosts.
Unlike John Milton, Huysmans will never have to worry about anyone thinking the Satanists are the good guys. The mass looked like what you’d witness at madhouse, a filthy, stinky madhouse with some very unattractive inmates (really, none of them are people you’d want to see naked and that coughing guy probably had tuberculosis, which means it won’t take long for everyone to be coughing up blood), and Hyacinthe must be one of the least appealing seductresses ever. By the way, after Durtal breaks up with her for good, she sends him several bitchy letters because while he may endow his worshippers with magical powers and riches, Satan neglected to grant them some much needed self-awareness. Then again, given what he expects them to do, lack of self-awareness is likely a must for any Satanist. Also, I must agree with Des Hermies that there was something missing. I wasn’t expecting anything on the level of Gilles de Rais, but not even a goat sacrifice?
All in all, it was an interesting read. I didn’t check whether every bit of information was accurate, though it’s not like I’ll be using this as a textbook. Also, after finally seeing what all the fuss was about, I wonder if those complaints to the newspaper didn’t come from Satanists. People used to find them scary and sensual and after this everyone started thinking they ate butt wafers. I wasn’t sure what tags to use for this post, but Horror fits very well, both physical (the passages on Gilles de Rais) and spiritual (the Satanists), even if this isn’t really a horror novel.
By Danforth