Christa Giles

102
Such misogynistic sentiments are clearly revealed in Rop’s
etching ˝Prostitution and Folly Dominate the World.˝ And
in Moreau’s description of one of his many works dealing
with Salomé (˝Salomé in the Garden˝), he echoes Wilde’s
and Huysmans’ perception of the Salomé figure,
recapitulating the prevalent view of the femme fatale:
This woman jaded, whimsical, of an animal
nature, giving herself the pleasure, not at all a
keen one for her, of seeing her enemy lying
on the ground, such is her disgust with any
satisfaction of her desires. This woman
strolling nonchalantly in a dull and brutish
way in the gardens which have just been
sullied by this ghastly murder, appalling to
the executioner himself, who runs away in
bewilderment. 304
Yet, paradoxically, the decadent sees the desire to break
through the boundaries of knowledge (hence his interest in
satanism and psychology) as a positive virtue. Further, his
desire to admit the power of the irrational and unconscious
forces ensure that the figure of the femme fatale – a
concrete embodiment of these preoccupations – should
figure prominently in Huysmans’ and Wilde’s work. For
ultimately evil, the satanic, when presented in forms of