Christa Giles

mournful contemplation of things becoming a
kind of grotesque joy, which he expresses in
the only symbols at his command, tracing his
Giotto’s 0 with the elegance of his pirouette. 164
This ˝grotesque joy˝ is obviously the hallmark of
Huysmans’ Pierrot, and in a bizarre passage in his essay on
Rops and satanism, he describes a Japanese erotic print in
which a woman is embraced by an octopus. Her face is
depicted as that of a Pierrot, and simultaneously exhibits an
‘hysterical joy and superhuman anguish˝:
C’est une Japonaise couverte par une pieuvre;
de ses tentacules, l’horrible bête pompe la
pointe des seins, et fouille la bouche, tandis
que la tête même boit les parties basses.
L’expression presque surhumaine d’angoisse
et de douleur qui convulse cette longue figure
de pierrot au nez busqué et la joie hystérique
qui filtre en même temps de ce front, de ces
yeux fermés de morte, sont admirables! 165
Huysmans connects the admixture of joy and
sorrow, the satanic, and death with the Pierrot figure, a
figure who, like Durtal or Dorian Gray, can never meet or
satisfy his metaphysical desires. This results in an
essentially ironic perspective which is exhibited by all of
Wilde’s dandies. For the dandy accepts, recognises, and
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