Christa Giles

147
leaning towards a denial of the external world, their
interest in the life of the imagination, it was predictable that
they should concentrate more and more upon the self. As
usual, Huysmans is caught between his interest in man’s
cerebrations and his love of mystery and amplification of
mystery for its own sake. And while the novel contains
only three dream episodes interspersed among quotidian
activities, these episodes, despite their briefness, are
invested with more significance than the rest of the novel.
Or more accurately, the entirety of the novel is read in the
light of them. Indeed, the very first words of the novel are,
˝Le soir tombait…˝ 402 obliquely suggesting what is to
follow. The first dream is prepared for by the evocation of a
sense of ˝malaise,˝ 403 which haunts Jacques. The dream
begins with the dreamer viewing a long road at the end of
which is the palace – anticipating the metaphorical and
physical voyage which is the symbol of the entire novel.
Huysmans beautifully generates a sense of mystery by the
deliberate confusion of dream and reality through the
evocation of the senses. Thus the ˝Esther˝ figure in the
dream crouches before the king: ˝l’auréolait . . . d’un halo
d’aromes.˝ 404 The evocation of the sense within a dream
context creates for that moment a confusion between dream
and reality and invests the dream with equal validity.