Meanwhile the silvery sound of a clock that tolled
the angelus announced breakfast time to Des Esseintes.
He abandoned his books, pressed his brow and went
to the dining room, saying to himself that, among
all the volumes he had just arranged, the works of
Barbey d’Aurevilly were the only ones whose
ideas and style offered the gaminess he so loved to
savor in the Latin and decadent, monastic writers
of past ages.
Chapter 13
As the season advanced, the weather, far from improving,
grew worse. Everything seemed to go wrong that
year. After the squalls and mists, the sky was
covered with a white expanse of heat, like plates of
sheet iron. In two days, without transition,
a torrid heat, an atmosphere of frightful heaviness,
succeeded the damp cold of foggy days and the streaming
of the rains. As though stirred by furious pokers,
the sun showed like a kiln-hole, darting a light almost
white-hot, burning one’s face. A hot dust
rose from the roads, scorching the dry trees, and
the yellowed lawns became a deep brown. A temperature
like that of a foundry hung over the dwelling of Des
Esseintes.
Half naked, he opened a window and received the air
like a furnace blast in his face. The dining
room, to which he fled, was fiery, and the rarefied
air simmered. Utterly distressed, he sat down,
for the stimulation that had seized him had ended
since the close of his reveries.
Like all people tormented by nervousness, heat distracted
him. And his anaemia, checked by cold weather,
again became pronounced, weakening his body which
had been debilitated by copious perspiration.
The back of his shirt was saturated, his perinaeum
was damp, his feet and arms moist, his brow overflowing
with sweat that ran down his cheeks. Des Esseintes
reclined, annihilated, on a chair.
The sight of the meat placed on the table at that
moment caused his stomach to rise. He ordered
the food removed, asked for boiled eggs, and tried
to swallow some bread soaked in eggs, but his stomach
would have none of it. A fit of nausea overcame
him. He drank a few drops of wine that pricked
his stomach like points of fire. He wet his face;
the perspiration, alternately warm and cold, coursed
along his temples. He began to suck some pieces
of ice to overcome his troubled heart—but
in vain.
So weak was he that he leaned against the table.
He rose, feeling the need of air, but the bread had
slowly risen in his gullet and remained there.
Never had he felt so distressed, so shattered, so ill
at ease. To add to his discomfort, his eyes distressed
him and he saw objects in double. Soon he lost
his sense of distance, and his glass seemed to be
a league away. He told himself that he was the
play-thing of sensorial illusions and that he was
incapable of reacting. He stretched out on a
couch, but instantly he was cradled as by the tossing
of a moving ship, and the affection of his heart increased.
He rose to his feet, determined to rid himself, by
means of a digestive, of the food which was choking
him.
