Eleanor Keane’s foreword is helpful guidance to approaching the novel and its author. She notes how the Decadent movement “reveled in dismantling traditional gender roles and offered new and challenging perspectives on concepts of sexual dissidence, transgression, and pleasure.” As a result, it “offered Rachilde a valuable outlet for her creative potential and subversive imagination”.1 Indeed, both the author - and the Decadent Movement in general - aimed to challenge traditional social and literary mores.
This aim, however, may be why French Decadent literature is neglected. In the 20th Century, Western culture trended toward increasingly conservative views of women, gay men, masculinity, and sex. In particular, the United States seemed to reach a repressive nadir during the 50’s. I believe the taboo nature of - and resulting ignorance about - subject matter regularly dealt with in French Decadent literature (e.g., homosexuality, women’s sexuality, gender fluidity, etc.) deterred scholars from studying the movement, effectively excluding it from the literary canon.
If true, then that’s even more reason to celebrate a new translation of The Animal. Or any Rachilde novel. Or any novel from the Decadent or Symbolist movements. Greater access to this literature can only encourage fresh analysis of a movement which I believe was a critical steppingstone from 19th Century literature to Modernism. But, on to the book!
Rachilde introduces her protagonist without giving her name. I think she did this to encourage reading the character as representative of women. “Reason was something manufactured by several generations of men”2, she thinks during a night of insomnia, suspecting she is “unhappy about it”3 and wondering whether there might be “many creatures like she, awake among the sleepers”.4 This immediately evokes a Decadent motif of interior psychology in conflict with the Determinism that was dominant in the 19th Century.
Alternatively, Rachilde may have been too enmeshed in her culture to make the leap to true feminism. Such a difficulty might explain why the depiction of female empowerment in her novels relies on sadomasochism or lurid sexual violence. I don’t know enough about Rachilde to draw a conclusion, but I’m not sure it matters. Even if we grant that Rachilde was not a feminist and intended no feminist subtexts, it’s impossible to read her work and miss the recurring theme of women chafing under male-dominated culture. It’s just there!
Anyway, after the initial chapter sets up these themes, The Animal shifts to a 100-page flashback relating the history of the protagonist, Laure Lordès, and the drivers of her psychology and sexuality. An initial image presented is of an orderly garden at Laure’s childhood home being supplanted by windborne angelica. “The fuchsias, well cared for, smoked, weeded, watered, potted in winter, had all died one after the other; but, on the other hand, the chance seed made a stem, the stem of beautiful plant, and the beautiful plant soon became a shrub.”6
Laure explicitly identifies her feminine sense of self with the angelicas and, through them, that “she was naturally decomposed…she was sin itself”.7 Rachilde relates: “Laure Lordès, the suave angelica, had undoubtedly emerged from that kind of lust. Seemingly insignificant details make monsters. All it takes is the combination of all these details to possess the secret of the magic formula that creates appalling femininity.”8 In fact, Laure believes “everything that was very good was accompanied by a feeling of doing evil. Real pleasure was only to be found in concealing one's enjoyment.”9 This is a staggering level of self-loathing.
As time passes, we sense how stifled and repressed Laure is by a society hostile to her sexuality. She “went round and round in her life, trying to break through the confines, finding it already too narrow. So do the young beasts in the cage, twisting and turning to discover a way out of their nasty beatings.”10 Fittingly, her nascent sexuality emerges while hidden among the angelicas, and Rachilde describes her as a “pretty little Messalina-in-the-making”11, tapping a common personification of outré female sexuality in French Decadent literature.
With no useful guidance from her mother, Laure “spent her time pouring over dictionaries, recalling details and women's conversations, questioning the maid and the seamstresses who came in during the day, creatures always ready to tell dirty stories.”12 This all leads to Laure’s first sexual encounter and, while the narrative is ambiguous as to whether it’s consensual, it’s certainly not positive.
As Laure becomes a woman, her sexuality collides with social mores, and a rift develops between her sexuality and how she wishes to (or is required to) present herself to society. “What Laure was looking for was a slave, a man who would love her for the allure of pleasure, who would not disrupt the course of her life as a decent girl, who would submit to her every whim, and above all, who would be as innocent in appearance as she.”13 She has great difficulty navigating this balance.
As part of striking that balance Laure becomes the mistress of Henri Alban, a respectable man who thinks of her as a pet. “She was original, easy to clean up, and promising enough for good motherhood”14 and “the girl would quickly be trained to nicer habits, she did not have their vulgar language since she was perpetually silent, a proof of taste”.15 Worst of all: “An amiable broodmare not difficult to manage, able to bear the brake on the downhill slopes and to take the sugar from the hand of her master, without ever needing the whip!”16 These plentiful phrases give Rachilde’s novel the dubious honor of matching her most misogynistic French Decadent peers.
However, aside from Laure’s habit of wandering at night on the building rooftops, she is externally docile and submissive. At one point, she thinks: “You will love me, Henri, I want you to! I will make you love me, otherwise I will turn into the worst animal you have ever seen, me, whom you already take for a beast.”17 Despite Henri candidly seeking to end their liaison, Laure clings to him “like the dog who knows that her master wants to lose her at every corner.”18 Rather than feminism, what seems to be at work here is the Decadent motif of rational determinism versus inexplicable inner psychologies. Tellingly, Rachilde comments that Laure “could have become a divine lover, if someone had loved her…Unfortunately, her heart fell on that murderer of love who is called an ‘orderly man’.”19
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| print by Arthur Rackham, 1920 |
Despite Henri’s clueless encouragement, Laure spends most of her time in a social limbo. “She felt alone, outside of all society, placed above merry girls, below respectable women, in a kind of domestic dependence, and yet free to go anywhere to find herself a new cage.”22 The “new cage” being potential replacements for Henri. One is a crude pig Henri thrusts on Laure. The other, discovered during her nocturnal rooftop prowls, is a young criminal who spends the money Henri leaves Laure after abandoning her.
Meanwhile, the now grown Lion becomes predatory. “Sometimes in an extraordinary delirium, the beast would leap at her from the height of a piece of furniture, sneak up on her from behind, clutch at her shoulders as though trying to knock her over, nip at the back of her neck with wild cries, bursting with all of the imprecations of a rebellious, respectful love.”23 He is described as if he were an abusive male lover: “It was as if he had first wanted to slaughter her, but then thought she was his mistress after all, and that he had deigned to spare her for that day, just to prove his strength.”24 Soon after this, the cat goes out onto the roof at night but doesn’t return.
Warning: Spoilers ahead
Eventually, Laure must become a prostitute to survive. She shrinks at the prospect but resolutely intends to “hunt her game bravely until daybreak!” She is clearly susceptible: “Walking through the feverish boulevards, in this humid weather, emanating violent odors from all of the perfume stores and flower stalls, she was whipped by violent desires; brushing up against the men coming out of furnace-like restaurants…She took on a wild appetite.”25 Ultimately, however, she loses her nerve and considers suicide.
At that moment, she meets an unnamed man with whom she shares an instant connection. He seems to understand her. They have sex, fall in love, and Laure transfers her submissive docility to him. “She would no longer escape the fascination that he already exerted over her, for she felt ready to follow him anywhere.”26 When Laure is informed that he’s about to travel to Africa, she agrees to go with him. They then engage in a dialogue which clarifies that their attraction stems from a mutual understanding of how gender roles make it difficult to find love.27
Since I believe Laure was unnamed in Chapter 1 so she might represent women, I believe the man in Chapter 18 is similarly unnamed to represent men. He says to Laure: “May my complications of mind, my cerebral tortures never reach you. We love each other. Outside of that, there is no salvation. We have not wasted our hours of love on grotesque, preambles, and unhealthy hypocrisies…The true woman, according to nature, is you, without the prejudices, without the detours of our modern societies, without the stupid fear of appearing as something other than the beautiful creature you are!”28
Just as I was amazed that The Animal - despite being a Decadent novel - was on the verge of a happily-ever-after ending…the novel’s concluding scene happened.
After the man leaves to prepare for their trip, Lion comes back through a window which Laure has left open in hopes of his return. Starved, injured, and rabid, he “seemed to be out for revenge”29 and violently attacks Laure, mauling and biting her. Half-crazy from pain and her horrible disfigurement, which she sees in a mirror, Laure begins seeing with the eyes of a cat while weeping “for her lost beauty and the woman metamorphosed into a beast.”30 She crawls onto the roof to escape, but Lion is relentless. After a struggle, they fall off the roof and plunge to their death in the street far below.
It’s an impressive, shocking conclusion, and Rachilde depicts it in such graphic detail that my jaw was on the ground. At the same time, I’m not sure what to make of it. The meaning hinges on what Lion symbolizes, and that’s not very clear. Is he Laure’s unrepressed sexuality, her society-driven self-loathing, or male sexual power? He is each of these at one point or another, yet none of them for the entire novel. Keane suggests the interaction between Laure and Lion is her attempt to “harness her own wildness”31, and it’s also possible Rachilde wished to leave the end open to interpretation.
In any case, as stated at the start of this post, in The Animal Rachilde blurs the line between female sexual power and 19th Century notions of feminine hysteria. It’s a quintessential French Decadent motif, and Rachilde’s presentation of it is among the most outrageous and purposefully shocking of the Decadent writers (not a low bar). However one unpacks the imagery of this novel, Keane is correct in her foreword that The Animal “is a celebration of female appetite and a refreshing alternative to restrictive nineteenth-century ideals of femininity.”32 It’s an excellent example of the French Decadent novel.
My only regret about this edition of The Animal is that it lacks an appendix with a deeper discussion of the themes Keane raises and how they fit into the broader context of Rachilde’s oeuvre and French Decadent movement generally. Such analysis is sorely needed.
One final note just as I posted this. The French version of the title is 'L'animale'. This is the feminine form of the word 'animal'. The significance of this is that Lion is male, so the title must refer to Laure rather than to Lion. That certainly opens some additional doors of interpretation, as well as underlines the difficulties translators can face.
1. Eleanor Keane, “Foreword,” in The Animal, by Rachilde, trans. Lauren Fischer. (Seattle: Rachilde & Co., 2024), v.
2. Rachilde, The Animal, trans by Lauren Fischer. (Seattle: Rachilde & Co., 2024), 5.
3. Rachilde, 4.
4. Rachilde, 5.
5. Mike Rapport, City of Lights, City of Shadows: Paris in the Belle Epoque. (New York: Basic Books, 2024), 11-15.
6. Rachilde, 15.
7. Rachilde, 18.
8. Rachilde, 18.
9. Rachilde, 24.
10. Rachilde, 26.
11. Rachilde, 31.
12. Rachilde, 37.
13. Rachilde, 45.
14. Rachilde, 86.
15. Rachilde, 87.
16. Rachilde, 87.
17. Rachilde, 94.
18. Rachilde, 126.
19. Rachilde, 120.
20. Rachilde, 118.
21. Rachilde, 121-122.
22. Rachilde, 126.
23. Rachilde, 204.
24. Rachilde, 206.
25. Rachilde, 212.
26. Rachilde, 221.
27. Rachilde, 227-228.
28. Rachilde, 227.
29. Rachilde, 233.
30. Rachilde, 234.
31. Keane, viii.
32. Keane, vii
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