eed
into the stupidity which had once attacked him.

The physicians spoke of amusement and distraction. With whom, and with
what did they wish him to distract and amuse himself?

Had he not banished himself from society? Did he know a single person
whose existence would approximate his in seclusion and contemplation?
Did he know a man capable of appreciating the fineness of a phrase,
the subtlety of a painting, the quintessence of an idea,--a man whose
soul was delicate and exquisite enough to understand Mallarme and love
Verlaine?

Where and when must he search to discover a twin spirit, a soul
detached from commonplaces, blessing silence as a benefit, ingratitude
as a solace, contempt as a refuge and port?

In the world where he had dwelt before his departure for Fontenay? But
most of the county squires he had associated with must since have
stultified themselves near card tables or ended upon the lips of
women; most by this time must have married; after having enjoyed,
during their life, the spoils of cads, their spouses now possessed the
remains of strumpets, for, master of first-fruits, the people alone
waste nothing.

"A pretty change--this custom adopted by a prudish society!" Des
Esseintes reflected.

The nobility had died, the aristocracy had marched to imbecility or
ordure! It was extinguished in the corruption of its descendants whose
faculties grew weaker with each generation and ended in the instincts
of gorillas fermented in the brains of grooms and jockeys; or rather,
as with the Choiseul-Praslins, Polignacs and Chevreuses, wallowed in
the mud of lawsuits which made it equal the other classes in
turpitude.

The mansions themselves, the secular escutcheons, the heraldic
deportment of this antique caste had disappeared. The land no longer
yielding anything was put up for sale, money being needed to procure
the venereal witchcraft for the besotted descendants of the old races.

The less scrupulous and stupid threw aside all sense of shame. They
weltered in the mire of fraud and deceit, behaved like cheap sharpers.

This eagerness for gain, this lust for lucre had even reacted on that
other class which had constantly supported itself on the nobility--the
clergy. Now one perceived, in newspapers, announcements of corn cures
by priests. The monasteries had changed into apothecary or liqueur
workrooms. They sold recipes or manufactured products: the Citeaux
order, chocolate; the trappists, semolina;