Christa Giles

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feminine mystery. Moreau encapsulated the identification
of the femme fatale with the demonic in these words:
Woman in her primal essence, an unthinking
creature, mad on mystery and the unknown,
smitten with evil in the form of perverse and
diabolical seduction…that satanic precinct, in
this circle of vices and guilty ardours…
women whose soul has gone from them,
waiting by the wayside for the lascivious goat
to come by, the goat mounted by lust… 276
Furthermore, Salomé has never ˝abandoned herself to
men,˝ and consequently has eluded man. Simone de
Beauvoir notes that:
Virgins unsubdued by man who have
escaped his power, are more easily than
others regarded as sorceresses, for the lot of
woman being bondage to another, if she
escapes the yoke of man she is ready to accept
that of the devil. 277
Certainly Huysmans speaks of the woman depicted by
Rops as ˝timeless woman, the naked malignant beast, the
handmaid of darkness, the absolute bondswoman of the
Devil˝; 278 and Wilde’s vision of Salomé is consistent with
Huysmans’ idea of ˝femme vierge et lubrique.˝
The decadent connection between depravity and
continence and withdrawal into the self, then, finds its