Christa Giles

50
abnormal (which is of course a product of his assertion of
artificiality), by ˝vivisecting himself,˝ 133 he becomes
incapable of attachments to other human beings. ˝I am too
much concentrated on myself,˝ 134 Dorian Gray recognizes,
and concomitant with this realization is the recognition that
he is incapable of love. Even Des Esseintes in a burst of
despair longs for a like-minded being while at the same
time aware of the impossibility of finding such a person –
even were he able to renounce his figurative and
metaphorical isolation. For the central characteristic of the
dandy is his independence, his autonomy. The ˝heroism˝ of
the dandy issues in part from the fact that he must cloak his
suffering with an impassive countenance. These ˝boudoir
stoics,˝ we are informed by D’Aurevilly in Du Dandyisme et
George Brummel (a text which both Wilde and Huysmans
were familiar with), ˝boivent dans leur masque leur sang
qui coule, et restent masqués. Paraître c’est être, pour les
Dandys, comme pour les femmes.˝ 135
The concept of the mask is intrinsic to much of
Huysmans’ and Wilde’s work. For Huysmans the mask is
not usually an actual symbol. Rather, it is an idea which
manifests itself in the dandy’s mode of distancing himself
from the Philistine and the bourgeois. In contrast, for
Wilde, the mask is a central symbol functioning on a
multiplicity of levels, and is closely connected with the idea