Brothers Goncourt

3 January, 1857. The offices of L'Artiste. Gautier, heavy of face, with all his features sagging, his lines thickening, a sleepy countenance, a mind drowned in a barrel of matter, the lassitude of a hippopotamus with intermittent flashes of understanding: a man deaf to new ideas, with aural hallucinations which make him listen over his shoulder when someone speaks to him face to face.

Wow. A striking early passage from the Goncourt Journals. The poems of Verlaine, the Journals of Edmond and Jules De Goncourt, and a collection of sketches by Huysmans are so far the extent of my supplementary reading for the Huysmans biography. The last few days, I haven't enjoyed the witty conversation in the Journals, because my roommate held a party this weekend largely of flamboyant gossips, and I've heard enough repartee to last a month. Instead, I've relished the mundane details and strange characterizations. True, too, I've enjoyed the complaints, but not when they've been brilliant.