Christa Giles

esplendent, that is all.˝ 222 In his essay on ˝Les Sataniques˝
Huysmans affirms that ˝all art must gravitate, like
humanity which has given birth to it and the earth which
carries, to one of these two poles: purity and lust, the
heaven and hell of art.˝ 223 Or in Dorian Gray’s words, ˝Each
of us has Heaven and Hell in him.˝ 224
The examination of good and evil as two opposing
poles of behaviour, the confusion of moral categories, lends
itself efficaciously to Wilde’s deliberate inversion of values
in the form of paradox or Huysmans’ use of satire and
parody. In Huysmans’ Croquis Parisiens one vignette in
particular reveals the way in which the demonic often
underlies the most ostensibly normal scene. Huysmans
describes an evening at the Folies-Bergère in which the
masked Pierrot is seen as a diabolical figure. The stage set
is significantly that of a cemetery. The atmosphere evoked
by the previous comedic scenes is negated upon the entry
of two Pierrots dressed in black rather than white:
L’impression produite par l’entrée de ces
hommes est glaciale et grande. Le comique
tiré de l’opposition de ces corps noirs et de
ces visages de plâtre disparaît; la sordide
chimère du théâtre n’est plus. La vie seule se
dresse devant nous, pantelante et superbe. 225
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