9
" She interrupted him. "My husband has no concern with the relations which may exist between you and me. He evidently suffers when I go out, as tonight, for he knows where I am going; but I admit no right of control either on his part or mine. He is free, and I am free, to go wherever we please. I must keep house for him, watch out for his interests, take care of him, love him like a devoted companion, and that I do, with all my heart. As to being responsible for my acts, they're none of his business, no more his than anybody else's."
She spoke in a crisp, incisive tone.
"The devil;" said Durtal. "You certainly reduce the importance of the rôle of husband."
"I know that my ideas are not the ideas of the world I live in... "
― Joris-Karl Huysmans , Là-Bas (Down There)
13
" This landscape of abomination is in a state of flux. Gilles now sees that the trunks are covered in frightful tumours and goitres. He observes exostosis and ulcers, pustulent sores the size of rocks, tubercular chancres, atrocious caries. It is a vegetal leper house, an aboreal venereal clinic in which, at a turn in the path, there stands a copper beech.
And as he stands beneath those crimson leaves, he feels that he is being drenched in a shower of blood; and imagining that a wood nymph lives under the bark, he becomes enraged; he wants to fumble in the flesh of a goddess, massacre the Dryad, violate her in a place unknown to the follies of men. "
― Joris-Karl Huysmans , Là-Bas (Down There)
15
" Любить друг друга издали, безнадёжно, безответно, не рассчитывая на взаимность, никогда не принадлежать друг другу, целомудренно мечтать о недоступных прелестях, о невозможных поцелуях, о ласках, угасших на изгладившемся из памяти мёртвом челе, - ах. какое это, должно быть, чудное, ничем не омрачённое счастье! Всё остальное мерзость и тлен. "
― Joris-Karl Huysmans , Là-Bas (Down There)